Chronicles Of Sinnoh
by Black-Rose01
Summary: Who would have thought that a series of chance meetings with Professor Rowan and a strange, unknown man would have given three kids the opening to change the world! *Typical rewrite of the game, but with real changes to story and more jokes*
1. Route 201

Rose: Yay, new story, I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: OC's and (kind of) plot.

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I moved to the Sinnoh region when I was six years old with my mother after my father left us, I didn't much like the place because it was so much colder than my home of New Bark Town and for the first few months I had to constantly wear a thick coat and stay inside because I kept getting colds, the other children teased me constantly about it,

As such I never met him until my first tentative steps out of the house about five months after we arrived, I was sitting in my front garden with Coral, the Totodile Professor Elm had given me as a going away present, when some children came to bully me some more, when they saw the pokemon however the words died in their throats and they all crowded around, suddenly wanting to be my best friend because I was the only child with my own pokemon,

Coral deterred them pretty quickly when she bit them though, and once again I was alone; no one dared to come close because of her razor sharp fangs,

Then he came along, he saw me sitting alone in the Twinleaf Park with Coral, he took one curious look at her before turning to me with a wide grin, before I could open my mouth he'd already grabbed my hand and was dragging me out to Route 201 to play by the lake, Coral could barely keep up,

After that fateful day it became a regular thing, the three of us would meet up and play together at the lake, over the years we grew close until finally, no one would see one of us without the other,

I remember the first day during our play time, when he asked me my name;

"Syren" I replied shyly,

He pulled a face, blond hair hanging in front of his eyes and in need of a serious cut "that's a weird name"

I poked the ground nervously with my toes "my Mom really likes Milotic, and since they're sometimes called sirens she decided to name me after them"

"Oh, well that's cool then. I'm Barry!"

And that was that,

Over ten years had passed since the day we met, even at the ages of sixteen I was still prone to teasing from my peers and Barry, being the energetic nut that he is, is always quick to defend me and then be beaten up, Coral was no hope; if her bites were any indication then she didn't like my blond friend,

We kept to ourselves mostly, hanging around the lake, but this morning was different, Barry had heard about a new show documenting some kind of Red Gyarados back in the Johto region and had dragged me over to his house to watch it, he, Coral and I crammed onto his sofa with popcorn, ready to watch about the Lake of Rage, throughout the show he kept asking me questions,

"Did you ever see a Red Gyarados?"

"No Barry"

"Have you ever been to Lake of Rage?"

"No Barry"

"Are there three lakes in Johto like here?"

"No Barry"

"Do you want anymore popcorn?"

"No Barry"

The show had been interesting, explaining that some kind of radio waves had been the cause of an unnatural evolution which had resulted in the pokemon retaining its red scales from its previous form, I glanced at Coral curiously when the commentator said that and she blinked at me cutely, Professor Elm had told me that she wasn't like other Totodile, when I picked her out of the three starters before we'd left he'd tried to take her back because her colouring was unusual, Coral wasn't having that though and Elm had to relent and let me keep her,

When the show ended Barry leapt up with excitement "Hey Sy, I bet that there are rare pokemon in our Lake, right?"

"Hm?" I twirled a lock of mid back ebony hair around my fingers, the ends were uneven and it flicked all over the place, my mom was always trying to get it cut but I liked it messy and un-ladylike,

"And there's that Professor in the next town, I'll bet if we went and asked he'd give us some pokemon, and then we could catch the rare one in the Lake!"

"You don't even know if there is a rare pokemon in the Lake" his golden eyes locked with my silver ones and he pouted "besides, we have a pokemon" I petted Coral, the little Totodile yipped,

"But she's yours!" he cried, Barry had the demeanour of a twelve year old despite his sixteen year old body "I want one of my own!" I reached into my pocket and extracted a small white and red ball which I held out to my friend,

"Here, I found this when we were at the Lake the other day, maybe you can catch something with it" he crossed his arms and I returned the ball to my pants,

He was dead set on a pokemon from the professor "let's GO!" he cheered when he saw that I'd given up "I'll meet you in Route 201 in ten minutes, don't be late or I'll fine you ten million poke-dollars!" he threatened before stomping up the stairs, I sighed and returned to my own house which was around the corner from his, I decided that if we were going to meet such a famous man then I'd better change,

I chose a long sleeved white shirt and a turquoise scarf and some long denim jeans as well as a large black jacket that was at least two sizes too big, the ends of the sleeves reached the joints of my fingers but I liked it, on my feet I had some sturdy new black and white sneakers, I wasn't sure what to pack exactly so I just took with me the pokeball I'd found and the one that belonged to Coral; she was riding on my shoulders as I bid my mom goodbye and ran out of the town gates to where Barry was already waiting with his brown shoulder bag "what did you bring?" I asked,

"You're late!" he accused, I rolled my eyes "and I brought my journal, my camera and some pens but my pockets weren't big enough so I had to bring the bag"

He turned towards the long grass that separated us from Sandgem Town "um…mom said we weren't supposed to go in the grass without her or your mom"

"Sy, we're sixteen!" he placed his hands on his hips "we don't need our moms to hold our hands every step of the way" I frowned and rubbed the back of my head "besides, you said it earlier; we have a pokemon with us which means we can use it to fight off the wild ones! And if that doesn't work then I have a plan!"

"Oh, I can't wait to hear this…" I muttered, Coral sniggered in my ear, Barry was wearing his long sleeved orange and white striped shirt, long black pants and brown boots, he also had the green scarf I'd bought him for his thirteenth birthday,

"See, the pokemon can't get us if we keep moving" as he was explaining this the blond was crouched low and glancing around as if on the lookout "we just have to run as fast as we can and then they won't catch us"

I sighed "that's never going to work, Whirlwind" he flinched at the old nickname I'd given to him, I'd called him it before I knew his name because of how fast he always ran, the name always made him flush bright red,

"Don't call me that or I'll fine you a million!" I scoffed and craned my head back to stare at the rather grey sky, a Murkrow crowed from above me and I pulled a face,

"I didn't think those were found around here" I murmured softly, Barry drew my attention back to him,

"You ready Sy?"

"Uh…well-"

I didn't get a chance to finish because he'd grabbed my wrist and was already pulling me over to the grass "on the count of three! Okay?"

"Er-"

"One…two…three!" he started sprinting and I could barely keep up, we were about a foot from the greenery when a loud shout stopped us,

"**HOLD IT!**"

Barry tripped in shock and landed with a thump, still holding onto me I fell across him with a grunt, we looked over to see an old man and a boy about our age coming towards us, the boy held his hand out to me which I gratefully took and let him pull me up, the old man grabbed Barry by his arm and hoisted him to his feet,

"Are you okay?" the boy asked me, I smiled and nodded,

"Yeah, being with Whirlwind here means I'm used to knocks and tumbles" he mimicked my smile,

"That's good, I'm Lucas" he held out his hand,

"I'm…" I blushed and lowered my voice as I muttered my name to him, he asked me to repeat it "Syren" I said, a little louder "I know it's stupid so if you want to laugh or something…"

"No, I won't laugh" he seemed sincere so I relaxed, the boy was a little bit taller than myself with short black hair, most of which was hidden under a red beret and smoky grey eyes, he was wearing a red shirt, a white scarf and some black pants with blue sneakers, he also had a thick blue jacket, on his back was a large white backpack,

From behind Barry was making a fuss because the old man was trying to lecture him about running into long grass unattended "but we have a pokemon!" he cried, pointing at me, Coral snorted from her position by my foot, she'd fallen from my shoulder when Barry and I had landed in a heap, and the two newcomers finally noticed her, Barry was released and he rubbed his arm with a glare at the old mans back,

"My, my, what an interesting Totodile; the colouring is all wrong" the old man took a closer look at her, bending down to her height for a better look "she's supposed to be blue with red spikes, but she's green with blue ones"

"Professor Elm said something about her being different when he gave her to me" I said,

"Professor Elm?"

"I'm from the Johto region, I moved here about ten years ago and he gave Coral to me as a going away present"

"Interesting, interesting" the old man had snow white hair with a moustache, he was wearing a blue shirt, black pants and a long brown coat; in his hand he held a briefcase "now, young man, would you care to explain what you thought you were doing? Dragging this girl into the grass?" I laughed nervously,

"We were going to see the Professor of Sandgem Town" my friend answered impatiently,

Lucas started chuckled "and why were you doing that?" the old man asked,

"Because I wanted to ask him for a pokemon and Sy wanted to come along!"

_Way to twist it Barry_

I had picked my Totodile back and perched her on my shoulders again "well young man, you don't need to go all the way to Sandgem because the Professor isn't there"

"Oh" I gasped,

"WHAT?" Barry cried "well where is he then?" I burst into laughter with the others "why are you laughing?"

I reached over and gripped the blondes shoulder "I think **he's** the Professor" his jaw hit the floor,

"Huh?"

"For once you're speechless Barry" I joked,

"Barry? Is that your name?" the red hat wearing boy stepped over "I don't know if you heard but I'm Lucas" Barry didn't take his outstretched had,

"Yeah, yeah I heard" he crossed his arms with a pout as he stared at the Professor "so I guess this means I don't get a pokemon, huh?"

"Not necessarily" the man gave us a small smile "but first, introductions; I am Professor Rowan"

"Nice to meet you" I greeted, my friend was still sulking slightly but managed a weak 'hi',

Rowan dropped his briefcase and opened it up, inside, buried amongst the many papers and documents were three pokeballs "we were just taking the new pokemon to the lake for training and exercise, in preparation for any new trainers who might want them" Lucas explained to me, the Professor tapped the button on each ball and in a flash of white light stood three young pokemon, a fire, a water and a grass type,

"Turtwig" the little green turtle like one grunted,

"Piplup" the blue penguin chirped,

"Chimchar" the orange monkey with the flame for a tail crossed its arms and turned its head away,

I cooed "they're all so cute" when I bent down the Turtwig and Piplup ran over to receive head rubs but the Chimchar wasn't so sure and scoffed at the two of them,

Coral bounced down and knocked the younger ones away with a snarl "Toto!" she cried, their eyes watered and not a second later they were bawling,

"Coral!" I scolded "they're only babies, how could you?" Barry had picked up the Piplup and was holding it with his hands under its flippers; it stopped crying to blink at him curiously as Lucas tried to console the grass type,

"There, young man" Rowan motioned to the three pokemon "why don't you pick one?"

The golden eyed boy gaped "really? I can have one?"

"You love pokemon don't you?" he nodded frantically "and if you promise to take good care of it then I don't see any reason why you can't have one" we grinned at each other "that and…I'm sure if I don't give you one you'll continue to drag the young lady into the grass until I relent" I laughed loudly and Barry flushed and the three pokemon gathered around the briefcase again,

"The Chimchar is very energetic" Lucas explained "he would be a good match for you I think" as he said it the chimp cried out and turned its back to us "but he's also prone to moodiness"

"Just like Barry" I muttered to him "but you'll probably go for the Turtwig, right Barry? So that you'll have an advantage over Coral and I"

"No way!" he yelled and picked up the water type once more "I want the Piplup, that way we can have an equal footing!"

I giggled "hear that Coral, now you have a friend" we placed the two water types on the floor next to each other, they stared at each other silently for a few moments until the Piplup let out a cry and his face turned pink, without a second thought he ran to the Totodile and grabbed her little hand before pecking it lightly with his beak, Coral turned red, but it wasn't from embarrassment, and punched the bird pokemon so hard he collided with the Professor's legs, Chimchar laughed and Turtwig went to see if he was alright,

"She gets that from Sy" Barry rubbed the back of his head "when we were thirteen a boy kissed her on the cheek and she punched him so hard he lost one of his permanent teeth"

"Thanks for sharing" I shot him a dirty look as Lucas sniggered, the Piplup had regained himself and was trying to get Coral's attention once more but she wasn't having any of it and refused to look at him,

"I'll take the Turtwig then" the black haired boy voice as he grabbed the green turtle "then I can have an advantage over both of you!" the little fire type looked at the three of us one by one and then crossed his arms again "so I guess this means you get Chimchar, huh?"

I frowned "but I already have a pokemon…it's not really fair to have another" at this the Chimchar let out a cry and slapped at my knees, I jumped away with a yelp and Coral blocked him with a snarl "okay guys, don't fight!" I ordered as the two of them circled each other,

In the flash of red the chimp was gone and Rowan was holding his pokeball "I'll take this little one back to the lab, I do hope you enjoy your new Piplup, Barry" he smiled at my friend who had placed the penguin on his shoulders like I did with Coral,

"Oh man! I gotta go show mom!" Barry sprinted back into the Town,

"Um…I'm sure he's very thankful" I laughed "he just…forgets sometimes"

The two males chuckled and Lucas spoke up "so…er…" his face turned slightly pink "if you ever need anything you can come to the lab in Sandgem, I'm sure I, or the Professor, can help you with whatever's troubling you" he messed up his hat as he rubbed his head, I nodded,

"I'll be sure to tell-"

"SYREN!" I cut myself off and turned to the blond who was running back to me, the Piplup was holding onto his scarf for dear life, the boy grabbed my hand "you're coming over to dinner tonight and mom wants to know what you want to eat!"

"Wait, what? Since when…AH!" I didn't get a chance to continue because he was already dragging me away "Barry wait! I didn't get a chance to say thank you!"

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Rose: First chapter done,

Review please!


	2. Lake Verity to Sandgem

Rose: Yay, next chapter, thanks for the hits people!

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

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Sitting at the kitchen table with Barry and his mother was a regular thing, I usually went over his house for meals every other day, and he came over to mine with the same pattern, this time we had two pokemon eating with us though, the two water types were wolfing down their pokemon food with glee, Piplup glanced over at Coral every so often, making us laugh because it was so obvious he wanted to get her attention but she was ignoring him,

When we'd finished eating and playing with the two of them his mother offered to let me stay the night like she did most times, I gladly accepted, my own mom would know where I was, I'd told her I'd be at Barry's for dinner so if I didn't return she'd know I'd stayed over,

Like always I stayed in Barry's room with him, it was messy, much like my own, with his clothes thrown all about the place; I caught him shoving a pair of boxers under his bed in embarrassment, he thought I hadn't seen so I sniggered silently, he had bunk-beds as opposed to my own single bed at home, I took the bottom and he hoisted himself to the top after removing his shoes, scarf and shirt, I kicked off my own sneakers and hung my scarf and coat on his desk chair, Coral curled up by my side and Piplup slept with the blond,

"Night" I said after shutting off the light,

He muttered something along the lines of "peanut butter pokemon" before letting out a snore, I chuckled,

Barry was so energetic, it was no wonder he fell asleep so quickly.

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"UP AND AT 'EM!"

I screamed and fell from the bed, after so many years of being Barry's friend I should be used to such awakenings but as such…I wasn't,

Rubbing the back of my head I groaned and shot a dirty look at the blond, by the looks of it he'd only just gotten out of bed too because he wasn't dressed and his hair was messier than usual "ow" I grunted as Piplup and Coral used me as a crash mat to hop down as well,

"We're going to the Lake today! Now that we both have pokemon we can try and catch the rare one that lives there!" he was fishing through his drawers for another pair of pants and a stripy shirt like his other one, I picked myself up and pulled on my shoes tiredly,

"Fine…but I'm going home for a shower and a change of clothes, then-"

"Shower here" he threw a towel at me, I pulled it off my head in frustration "I'll go get your clothes, your keys are in your jacket right?" before I could answer he'd already grabbed them "cool, so I'll be back and if you aren't at the kitchen table by then it'll be a fine!" he ran out of the room, leaving Piplup behind, I yawned again and started down the hall to the bathroom, it was all white and the shower had see through glass doors, I always loved Barry's bathroom because it was so bright, ours was painted blue and we had a tub-shower combo as opposed to just a shower which I liked better,

The two little water types plodded after me and sat on the toilet as I stripped and stood under the jet of hot water; since I came over so often Barry's mom had bought me my own shampoo and body wash, I'd done the same back at my place for him,

The wash was waking me up but I was still tired, running around after the male did that to me and it seemed as though I never got enough sleep no matter what time I went to bed,

"SY!" I heard said boy shout from downstairs "ARE YOU READY?"

"BARRY!" his mother yelled "FOR PITIES SAKE! IT'S EIGHT IN THE MORNING, DON'T YELL!"

"BUT YOU'RE YELLING!"

"I HAVE A REASON TO!"

I giggled to myself and turned off the water; I squeezed out my hair and was just about to slide the door and grab my towel when the bathroom door opened "geeze, I think I figured out where I get my voice from; hey Sy, are you-" the golden eyed boy froze in the threshold and his face turned red,

"BARRY!" I screamed; the glass was still steamed up so he could barely see anything but I still flailed to cover myself "HAVE YOU HEARD OF KNOCKING?"

"SORRY!" he screamed, dropping my clothes before running out and slamming the door, I sighed and dried myself before changing into clothes just like the ones from the day before,

"You're an idiot" I laughed to him when I entered the kitchen, using his brush on my hair, his cheeks were still red and he was too focused on buttering the toast "I forgive you" I giggled to him, Coral and Piplup were on my heels and jumped up to the table for their breakfast "Barry?"

He looked at me, and then quickly twisted away, I could see his whole face was burning now "so…um…are we going to the lake?" he asked, for once his voice wasn't rushed or anything,

I chewed on the toast and nodded as I pulled on my jacket and fed the pokemon "sure, whenever you're ready…I never thought I'd say that in my life" he grinned at me, all thoughts about the shower pushed from his mind,

"Yeah, c'mon guys! Hurry, hurry, hurry!" he started trying to cram as much food as he could into Piplup's mouth, Coral had already finished hers and was waiting with a bored expression; I licked the butter from my fingers and shook my head as the penguin got some food lodged in his throat "NO TIME FOR CHOCKING!"

Once Piplup had been saved we left the house and made our way to the lake, it was empty as usual, no one ever tried to get to the lake because it was so overgrown with grass and weeds, wild pokemon were common but mostly they were Starly or Magikarp, pretty harmless and only attacking if we messed with them, so far we'd been safe,

But then again, walking along a lakeside was very different to running into long grass,

The two water types splashed about in the water as we ran alongside the bank laughing, Piplup once again tried to impress my Totodile by leaping out of the water and flipping in the air, he would have landed perfectly if a Magikarp hadn't surfaced right where he was about to land, he hit the rock hard scales of the fish and landed on his belly before sinking, Coral rolled her eyes and dived down to get him before pulling him onto land, I rubbed the little guys head,

"Do you feel better?" he nodded and blinked away his tears, after which he dived again and tried once more to do the flip but every time the same Magikarp would mess it up for it "it wants to play" I said to Barry who nodded,

When the penguin decided to give up Coral patted him on the back, this made him blush brightly and he pecked her softly on the cheek, just like the previous day she punched him and he started crying "c'mon Piplup!" the blond crouched down "don't let it get you down, you can't cry every time Coral hits you because otherwise she'll never take you seriously!" he sniffed and stared up at his trainer before jumping to his feet and beating his chest,

"If your Piplup gets hurt it's not my problem" I voiced quickly, the amber eyed boy scowled,

"Cute Sy, real cute"

"Mur!" we turned to the side and sitting on a low branch of one of the trees was a Murkrow,

I cocked an ebony eyebrow "are you the one from yesterday? Murkrow aren't found around here"

Barry yelled "COOL!" the two pokemon and I winced at the decibel "Sy give me that pokeball you found" I fished it from my pocket and tossed it to him, he held it out towards the little bird "I'm gonna catch you! Okay Piplup, use…" the penguin blinked at him "…what attacks does Piplup have?"

"Oh Barry" I rubbed my forehead "Coral use scratch!" the little green Totodile extended her claws and swiped at the Murkrow but it dodged easily,

"Piplup use scratch!"

I gave the blond a sidelong glance "Piplup doesn't have claws!" even so the blue pokemon was attempting to swipe out with his flippers,

"Um…tackle!" Piplup head butted a tree "try a pound attack!" this time it hit the beak of the bird, it landed with a thud from being unbalanced but hopped back to its feet quickly "pokeball GO!" the ball whacked it on the head and did nothing "what happened?"

"When the ball doesn't open that means it must have a trainer already" I explained "shame, a Murkrow would have been cool" I stuffed the ball back into my pocket, the black pokemon blinked at us before flying up into the air towards the entrance of the lake, through the shadows of the foliage the outline of a person was make clear to us, the Murkrow landed on their shoulder just as they broke out into the light,

"I guess it belongs to him, huh?" Barry sighed, Piplup mimicked him and I lifted Coral onto my shoulders, she grinned at me,

"What an interesting pokemon" I looked over to see the man was walking towards us, he was very tall and looked to be in his late twenties, his cheeks were sunken in and there were heavy bags under his eyes, his hair was light blue and spiked up, his eyes were the same colour, he was wearing black pants and a long sleeved black shirt with a grey one over the top, on the breast was a yellow 'G' "that Totodile…so unique"

He reached out to stroke her but she growled "you probably shouldn't" I warned "she has sharp teeth" his hand dropped and he looked over out to the lake,

"Do you children know the legend of this lake?"

"Legend?"

"Children?" Barry cried "hey buddy we're sixteen!"

The blue haired man chuckled "still barely children in this world" Barry was turning pink so I jumped in,

"I know there's supposed to be some kind of legend about the lake, but I don't actually know it myself"

He looked at me and a shiver rolled down my spine "an ancient and rare pokemon is supposed to reside in this lake-"

"See Sy, I **told **you there was a rare pokemon!"

"Yes Barry I believe you now stop yelling in my ear" I rubbed the side of my head as I shot him a dirty look,

The man shook his head with a sigh "there are two more lakes, one in the north and one to the east, there are rare pokemon in those ones too"

My blond friend grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me "we should catch those ones too, Sy!"

"I'm getting dizzy!"

"Mere children conquering the Lake Trio? The idea is laughable at best"

"WHY YOU!" Barry screamed, waving his fist at the man, I finally escaped his hold and rubbed my forehead,

"Geeze, do you have to yell? Damn!" Coral giggled from my shoulder "it was nice talking to you" I waved to the man "but I have to go stop the ringing in my ears!"

"Hey Sy, wait up!" I heard Barry's footfalls as he chased after me, looking back just before we turned the corner into the trees I saw the man gazing out at lake again with a hard expression "three rare pokemon!" he grinned at me "we should so go catch them!"

"Good luck with that" I moaned,

He grabbed my wrist to stop me "maybe that Professor guy knows something about them!"

I chewed my lip "Lucas did say if we needed anything we should visit the lab" my friend pouted at the mention of the boy but I disregarded it, I started tossing the empty pokeball into the air and catching it again as we walked, when we were back by the entrance to the long grass like the day before Barry rubbed his hands together,

"Alright, let's go then! To Sandgem Town!" he grabbed Piplup "race ya!" and vanished into the grass, Coral and I rubbed our foreheads,

"Honestly…alright, let's go get him" I tentively stepped in after him, pushing the grass aside as I fought my way through "I should have just left him…" I muttered as I stumbled "or stayed at the lake!" my shoe got tangled so I had to stop to unpick it "how did Barry do this? He just ran right through without getting caught! What the hell?"

"Toto!" I turned as Coral barked and saw a little blue rabbit like pokemon munching on the long stalks of greenery,

"Aw!" I cooed "it's so cute!" my pokemon glared at me before leaping at the other one and scratching it, it let out a yelp,

"Nido!"

And then tackled her back "okay Coral, leer!" the blue rabbit started shaking "now scratch attack once more!" it rolled back and landed on its stomach with a moan from the force of the attack, I jumped up "alright! Our first battle and we won!" as I was cheering the pokeball I had fell from my pocket and bounced across the ground until it hit the defeated pokemon, it flashed red and then vanished inside it, Coral and I watched as it shook three times before falling still "oh…" I picked it up "I think I caught it, we better get to Rowan's fast so he can tell me what it is"

* * *

When I finally made it to Sandgem I was surprised to see someone waiting for me "Lucas?"

The black haired boy grinned "hey, I was wondering when you'd show up, your friend Barry is already inside" I held out the pokeball,

"That's fine; could you tell me what this pokemon is? I accidentally caught it"

He cocked an eyebrow "accidentally?"

"Long story" I laughed as he led me towards a large wooden building with a bright blue roof and big windows, he opened the door and let me in first, at the far end I could see a familiar orange and white stripy shirt,

He turned around "there you are slowpoke!" I sighed "I should fine you for being so late"

I punched him "and I should fine you for leaving me in that grass!" he rubbed his arm and grinned sheepishly,

Rowan, who was standing beside Barry, sighed "dragging girls into grass again, young man?"

"More like abandoning next to" I corrected, the old man chuckled,

"Anyway, like I was saying…" the energetic boy said "I wanted to know about the three lake pokemon!"

I rubbed the back of my head, messing up my hair even more if possible "yeah sure, also…" I held out the pokeball again "can you tell me what this pokemon is?" the Professor took the ball and pressed the button, in a flash the small rabbit pokemon was sitting on his desk,

The blond blanched "whoa, wait a minute! Where did you get that pokemon?"

"Coral got into a fight with it and afterwards the ball fell out of my pocket and tapped it"

"No fair!"

The rabbit was still a little beaten up so it didn't open its eyes, Lucas came over and set his bag on the table, from it he extracted a squirt bottle which he proceeded to spray onto the little thing, the bruises and cuts disappeared and it squeaked,

"Nido…"

Rowan tapped his chin "it's a Nidoran, a female one to be exact" I petted her head gently, Coral leapt onto the table and sniffed her before holding out a hand in greeting, the Nidoran sat up on her hind legs and shook paws,

"Nice to see you being friendly for once" I commented to the Totodile, she grinned "I think I'll call you…" I chewed my lip "Nina" the rabbit smiled and bounced around the desk with Coral, Piplup, who had been sitting on the floor by his trainers foot, leapt up to and tried to join in but now both females were ignoring him,

"So, what was it you wanted to know about the three lakes?" Rowan asked us,

"We met this guy and he said there was rare pokemon in the lakes! I wanna catch them!" Barry bounced up and down in excitement, almost knocking over Lucas in the process,

Rowan laughed "well, the three lake pokemon are legends, I don't know much about them myself other than the three pokemon are supposed to embody the different fragments of the human spirit, knowledge, willpower and emotion. To be honest I'm not sure they even exist, they are legends after all"

"So they might not be real?"

"Possibly"

"Aw man" the blondes shoulders slumped and I laughed,

"Chim! Chim! Chim!" from the back room came a familiar cry and a little orange monkey trotted out with a bored expression,

"Chimchar!" Lucas exclaimed "you're supposed to be in your pokeball" the pokemon looked at him and then at the rest of us in turn before joining the others on the table, the boy in the hat sighed "he never listens"

Rowan had his back to us and was fiddling with something we couldn't see, Barry picked up Piplup and sighed "oh well, it was great finding out about the lakes but now I have to go catch some pokemon"

"Why?" I asked,

He pointed his finger at me accusingly "because you now have two! Which means I need to go catch some so I have more than you!" before we could argue he had already ran out of the lab, the door slamming loudly behind him,

The rest of us shook our heads.

* * *

Rose: Yay, chapter two, thanks for reading,

Review please!


	3. Sandgem to Jubilife City

Rose: Thanks for all the reviews people, I really loved them.

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

"I suppose I should go tell his mom that he won't be back for a while" I said as I tucked a lock of ebony hair behind my ear "she'll be worried otherwise"

Rowan nodded "and when you see him again; give him this for me" he handed me an orange rectangular shaped object, I flipped it over in my hands carefully "it's a pokedex, since I gave him one of my pokemon I've decided he can help me with my research"

"I have one too" Lucas held up another one, his was red however,

"I also have one you can have; if you want it that is" I shoved Barry's pokedex in my pocket and took the indigo coloured one from the professor "the pokedex can be used to access information on the different pokemon you meet, it's also a form of identification so once your information is programmed into it try not to lose it" I opened up my purple one and made a noise of interest,

It didn't have any buttons, relying only on a touch screen interface with a stylus attached to the side, I played around with it for a few moments before pocketing it as-well "thanks, I'll be sure to help as much as I can" the old man smiled "but, like I said, I better go tell Barry's mom where he is…or isn't in this case" I returned Nina the Nidoran to her pokeball and beckoned to Coral before waving at the two males.

* * *

"Hey!" I called when I stepped into the house "where's Barry's mom? She's not at home!"

My mother, with her dark blue hair appeared at the kitchen door "she's in here with me, why?" I moved closer to her and saw the person I wanted to speak to blinking at me curiously, Barry looked very little like his mother, she had brown hair and eyes and a much darker complexion, I'd seen a picture of his dad and knew at once that he took more after him,

"Hi" I greeted "I just came to tell you that Barry seems to have started a pokemon journey"

His mother sighed "just like his father, I knew we should have moved to the Battle Zone with him"

"Yeah…" I said, as a loss to say anything else "anyway, I just thought I should tell you since he rushed off so quickly"

"Well actually he came back earlier but I was out shopping, I came home to see his room had been ransacked, I thought we'd been robbed for a moment until I realised the only things that had been taken were his tent and some clothes"

"Typical" I rolled my silver eyes "mom? Professor Rowan asked me to help with his research, can I?"

"Will it be dangerous?" she asked as she sipped her tea,

I thought for a moment "I don't think so, I'd be collecting information on this pokedex" I showed her the object "and I need to find Barry to give him his anyway so I just thought…" I left it hanging hoping she'd understand,

My mother rubbed her forehead "alright, alright, as long as you promise to call me often and keep me updated" I kissed her cheek,

"Of course, I'm going to go pack and then I'll be off"

I ran up the stairs with Coral in tow, once in my room I grabbed a backpack from my wardrobe, a medium sized black one, and shoved a few shirts, and a couple pairs of jeans, toiletries and other necessities into it, I fished out my pop-up tent from under my bed and threw that in too before looking around for anything else I may need, when I decided that was enough I placed Nina's pokeball in the side pocket and slung it over my shoulder,

After a few more hugs and kisses from my mom I stepped outside, ready to begin my own journey, as I got to the gates leading to Route 201 I heard my name being called and twisted around to see Barry's mother rushing towards me, in her hand was a small package "I'm glad I caught you, please, give this to Barry for me when you see him, there's something in there for you too" she smiled and hugged me "tell him to be careful and to call me sometime" I nodded and waved to her and my mom until I vanished into the tall grass leading to Sandgem,

It didn't take me as long the second time round with I was glad for, before heading out north to Jubilife City where I assumed Barry would most likely be I stopped off at the Pokemon Centre to make sure the potion Lucas had given Nina had been enough, with confirmation that she was fine I started through Route 202,

It was a pretty easy trip, I used both Nina and Coral to battle the wild Starly and Shinx, I wanted to catch the latter and I cursed myself for not having bought any pokeballs before leaving,

About halfway along the Route I heard and saw rusting up ahead, Coral and Nina bent down ready to attack only to fall over and falter when Lucas appeared rubbing the back of his head "hey" he smiled "I thought you'd have been further on by now so I was trying to rush ahead, but it seems I was the one with the head start" I laughed "the Professor wanted me to give you this" he held out a pokeball and I hesitated before taking it,

Upon grabbing it eventually it opened with a flash of light and Chimchar was staring up at me from the ground, I pulled a face "he doesn't like me"

"He doesn't like anything" the boy joked "but the Professor thought that since I have Turtwig and Barry has Piplup it's only fair that you get Chimchar" I scratched the back of my head,

"O…kay, if he's sure" I looked down at the little fire type "so what should I call you then?" at the prospect of a nickname the monkey let out a cry and punched my calf, I winced "okay…no nickname" I rubbed the sore spot as Lucas looked lost,

"Maybe this was a bad idea"

I shot him a glare "you think?" still wincing slightly I returned Chimchar and Nina and put the balls in my bag "just for that you can keep me company on the way to Jubilife" Coral snorted in my ear from her position on my shoulders.

* * *

Jubilife City was the most modernised city in Sinnoh, over the tops of the many buildings we could see the T.V station and near it was the Poketch Company, I'd seen Poketch's in magazines and knew that I wanted to get one because it was bound to be useful,

Lucas had let his Turtwig out and it was toddling along beside him, Coral was still on my shoulders looking up at the skyscrapers, our first objective was to try and find Barry as we knew he had to be somewhere in the huge city,

Our first stop was the Pokemon Centre; Nurse Joy was a kind woman with pink hair tied in two loops and blue eyes, I handed her Coral and Nina's pokeballs because they'd been fighting wild pokemon, after giving them some potions she told me to let them rest for a little bit and they'd be fine,

"Have you encountered a tall boy with blond hair and golden eyes?" my friend asked "we're looking for him"

Nurse Joy tapped her chin in thought "there was a very hyperactive boy matching that description in here about half an hour ago"

"That's him" we chorused "did he say where he was going?"

"After collecting his pokemon he said he was going to the Poketch building across town" she supplied helpfully,

"Thank you" we said together as we made our way back into the streets, looking around we checked a bulletin board map of the city and then started down the road towards the Poketch building "this city is huge!" I muttered "imagine living in it, you'd be lost all the time"

Lucas laughed "yeah, it's much different to Twinleaf or Sandgem isn't it? Just wait until you see Hearthome City, it's just as big but a lot busier"

"Wow" I awed, looking around, from behind we heard someone call to us,

"Hey, you kids are trainers right?" we turned to see a man with teal green hair cut into a bowl-cut style, he was wearing an odd outfit of black shorts and top with high white boots and grey sleeves with some kind of segregated pattern on them "you have some rare pokemon, hand them over!"

"What?" we scoffed "as if!" I added, Coral and Turtwig growled,

"Fine, then I guess I'm just going to have to take them!" he threw a pokeball and a Wurmple cooed up at us from his feet, we stared at it and then at him "yeah, you brats are scared now right? Hahaha!"

The dark haired boy and I replied in monotonous voices "oh yes we're terrified"

"However will we stand up to this fearsome Wurmple?"

"Our pokemon will have no chance against this ferocious enemy"

The man continued to laugh "Wurmple, string shot!" the little red worm spat a sticky rope that tied Coral up, she fell off my shoulder and wriggled around until Turtwig bit her free,

"Okay, Coral scratch!" the Totodile leapt forward and swiped out, the worm cried out and fell on its back,

"Turtwig tackle!" it was hit again by Lucas's starter and then its eyes turned dizzy, the man was forced to return it,

"Damn kids" he muttered "I need better pokemon"

I cleared my throat "okay, can I just say something? Were you seriously trying to intimidate us with a Wurmple? That's like…the least threatening pokemon known to man! It's a push over, I think the only way you could have beaten us was if we'd died of laughter before attacking!" the man rubbed the back of his head as I spoke, then he shook himself back awake and waved his fist at me,

"I'll get you next time!" he ran off and vanished into an alley,

"Damn lunatics" I cursed before walking on with Lucas again, we reached the Poketch building with no more trouble and spotting Barry leaning against the wall with a piece of paper and a pen "hey!" I called; he looked up and grinned "I have something for you!" pulling out the Pokedex I shoved it in his hands "don't run off next time cause you may miss something, oh…and your mom told me to give you this" I fished out the package,

He unwrapped it quickly and extracted two neatly folded papers, each with a bow around them "maps" he said when he'd unfolded one "here, you can have this one" he tossed the other one at me and I put it in my bag,

"Are you trying to get a Poketch?" Lucas asked, Barry stared at him for a moment before nodding,

"They said you have to fill out this questionnaire and if you get all the answers right you're given one"

I made a noise of awe and quickly ran into the building, coming out a moment later I had a pen and paper too "you can help us!" I said to the Professors assistant "you know more about pokemon than we do" he looked reluctant but I dragged him over to a bench anyway "okay, pokemon grow by gaining experience in battles? Well even I knew that! Some pokemon can only evolve with the assistance of certain items?" I looked at Lucas "can they? That sounds weird"

"They can, some pokemon need the use of stones or fangs or claws to help them" I shrugged and scribbled my pen,

"Hey, no cheating!" Barry walked over with a frown,

"You're just jealous cause you didn't think of it first!" I smirked; the boy in the red cap shook his head nervously,

"Okay, fine" he sat on my other side and peeked at me answers "pokemon do need items to evolve? Wow" I watched him cross out his answer and write a different one,

"Now who's cheating?" I teased,

Lucas sighed "maybe the two of you should go to the Trainer's School by the Pokemon Centre, I think you need it because the two of you are so clueless" we blinked at him,

"That's not nice" I pouted "that's why you're here" he cocked an eyebrow and we shifted about when it became unnerving "alright! I'll go check out this school!"

We both started staring at Barry; he tried to ignore it but then Coral and Turtwig joined in so he had no choice but to join me, the Professors assistant walked us back across the city, we carried on past the Centre and towards a large building with a wall around it, passing through the gates Lucas opened the door for us,

Once inside the main hall we were greeted by the receptionist, he was a tall, rather podgy man with slicked back dark green hair "welcome, classes are beginning in ten minutes and it's all free of charge"

"Classes?" I repeated "what kind of classes?"

"We have classes for students studying to become trainers, though from the looks of it you're probably past that age, we have classes for those wishing to become Coordinators and classes for studying battling strategies and types of pokemon-"

"What classes do you have to help me finish this stupid questionnaire?" Barry cut him off impatiently "wait, did you say something about battling?"

The man sniffed "yes, I suppose that's the class you want to take?"

"Yes! C'mon Sy, which way?" he grabbed my hand and started bouncing,

"Down the hall to the right"

I yelped when my blond friend dragged me along with him, Lucas could barely keep up but at the same time he was struggling not to laugh.

* * *

Rose: I'll stop it there, next time; the three of them spend time in a battling class…this can't go well,

Review please!


	4. The Academy

Rose: Yay, thanks for the reviews, hope you enjoy this chapter,

Disclaimer: OC's and plot,

Just a quick note; I end paragraphs with commas not full stops because that's the way I was taught, however, I do realise that in other parts of the world people are taught to end all paragraphs with full stops which accounts for lots of confusion when they read my stories. I also don't place full stops within speech marks, again, something I was taught not to do. So, I'm not actually being grammatically incorrect in that sense, it's just a geographical thing. Thank you.

* * *

We were sitting quite close to the front in the middle of the row, Lucas on my right and Barry on my left, the former and I had recalled our pokemon so they didn't get in the way and after ten minutes of waiting with boredom the teacher had finally come in to begin the lesson,

"Welcome" she smiled, she was middle aged with shoulder length brown hair, a white button up shirt and black pencil skirt "let's get started shall we?" turning towards the whiteboard she picked up the pen and started writing "Status Ailments, what are they, how can they happen, how they can be cured and how they can be prevented"

Lucas slid over a piece of paper and a pen for me, I raised my eyebrows at him but took it anyway with a groan, Barry was fidgeting in his seat beside me, obviously he'd thought this class would have been more physical and was regretting coming to it,

"First of all, can anyone name a Status Ailment?"

We all shifted around and muttered except for Lucas who was shaking his head at us "poi-cough-son" I rolled my eyes and raised my hand, the woman pointed her pen at me,

"Poison?"

"Good; poisoning is, of course, caused by poison type attacks, whilst battling a pokemon's health will slowly deteriorate unless an Antidote is administered or you take it to a Pokemon Centre, if left untreated the pokemon can faint, during or after a battle and the longer you leave it the less your pokemon will like you unless its healed, one last thing, Steel and Poison types are immune to poisoning"

Lucas nudged me until I'd written down everything she'd said, Barry started writing it but had missed out some information and had shortened it down to 'Poison=bad, need Antidote!'

"Can anyone name another Ailment" the Professors assistant went to cough again but I elbowed him hard, causing him to become temporarily winded, luckily though someone else answered with 'Freeze' so his chocking was ignored.

* * *

"…and that's the Burn ailment, of course some pokemon with the Ability 'Gut's can use ailments like Burn and Freeze to increase their attack power, rather than lower it which brings us onto the next topic of Abilities" after making sure those of us that were writing were finished, the teacher wiped down the bored and wrote up the new title "Abilities are special attributes that pokemon are born with that can aid or hinder them in battle, there are just over one hundred known abilities so we don't have time to go through them all, it's your job to do that; just like before…can anyone name one? Not counting the one I mentioned earlier, you; the dark haired girl!"

She pointed at me "pokemon have special abilities? That is so** cool**! What are they? Can you name some?"

"What? No! That's what I'm asking you to do!"

I blinked my silver eyes at her "huh? I'm the student! That's your job; you're supposed to teach me these things, what's the point in asking me the answer to a question when I've come here for that exact same reason? What? Did you pull this lesson plan out of your a-" my mouth was suddenly covered by two hands, one belonging to the blond and another belonging to the black,

The woman sighed "never mind, I'll name a few common ones"

* * *

"That was fun, I guess"

Barry and Lucas were holding their heads in their hands as they followed me back outside and towards the pokemon centre, it was pushing five-o-clock now so we had barely half an hour to return the questionnaire sheets, now with all the questions filled in flawlessly due to four hours of constant lectures,

My blond friend received an orange one, it was small with two red buttons and a touch screen, the whole thing was a kind of elongated oval shape with a soft fabric strap, when I went to collect mine they handed me a purple one with all the same features of Barry's, I flicked through the apps slowly "there's a map on it!"

Lucas was looking at Barry's until I came over and he inspected mine "not a very good map, the one's your mom gave us are better" I answered "don't you want one?" I turned to the assistant,

He laughed "nah, it's not really my thing, they're better for battlers or coordinators, not for researchers"

Barry clapped his hands and leapt into the air "alright! I can't wait to get going…so I won't! See ya Sy!" as he tried to run off I grabbed him by his green scarf,

"Oh no you don't! It'll be dark soon and if you think I'm letting you wander around aimlessly then you have another thing coming! You're coming with us to the Pokemon Centre; you can leave in the morning!" he pouted and tried to struggle but I held fast and he had to relent, I dragged him back to the centre with Lucas on his other side in case he ran "idiot" I sniggered lightly,

Nurse Joy had only had a single room so we decided to share; when we entered we found two bunk beds on either side of the window "is it okay if we share with you Sy?" Lucas asked as he blushed "I mean…you are a girl"

"What's the problem?" Barry asked him after dumping his bag on one of the beds "Sy and me used to share a room all the time back in Twinleaf, in-fact, just last night we did it!"

Lucas gaped at him, his blush becoming darker "r…really?"

"Yeah" I added "Barry has a bunk-bed and when we're over at mine we camp out in the living room with our sleeping bags"

The blush quickly faded "oh…I understand now; I thought you meant-" we stared at him "nothing, it's not important!" I giggled and placed my own bag on the bed opposite Barry's,

"So…" I turned to my blond friend who was busy glaring at the oblivious assistant "have you caught any pokemon?" his dirty look vanished and he puffed out his chest proudly,

"Yep, I caught a Starly" he held out the pokeball and the little bird was released, unlike its trainer it seemed rather cool and colleted, it peered up at me from my lap and chirped when I stroked it, judging from the spot on its forehead it was a male,

"That's cool" I reached into my bag "but I'm still winning" Chimchar stretched his arms above his head and yawned after I opened his ball, Lucas picked him up,

"He seemed to have warmed up to you" as he said it the chimp pokemon pushed away from him and landed on my shoulders, I tensed as I waited for him to punch me or something but he only started to play with my hair,

Barry pouted "what? You took the Chimchar in the end?"

I shrugged "Lucas said that Professor Rowan insisted, but I don't think he likes me very-ow-much" the fire type tugged on my locks before hopping down and returning himself to his ball, I rubbed my head and the Starly fluttered back to his trainers shoulder, I sighed as I collected up my pokeballs and held them to my chest "well…I don't know about you two but I'm going to get some dinner" I smiled to them and left to find the kitchen with my pokemon, after a couple minutes I heard the two of them run after me, they were carrying their own pokeballs in their hands like I was, Barry had two and Lucas still only had one,

The kitchens were free for trainers to use, it was rather small but there was a table and some chairs, after releasing our pokemon again we settled down to eat some warm soup and bread as the pokemon wolfed down their own meals, like all the other times Piplup was attempting to gain Coral's favour but she wasn't having it, this time she had Nina with her and together they ganged up on the younger pokemon and repelled him,

Turtwig and Chimchar were chatting in the corner and Starly was consoling his team-mate, we laughed at their antics and when he noticed Chimchar took the time to stuff an ice cube down my back, as I leapt up in shock the soup I'd been eating fell over my lap so now I was dancing between hot and cold,

"Chimchar!" I cried, he shrugged "ah…damn! The Centre has a washing machine right?" Lucas pointed it out down the hall, I returned to the room and changed into my pyjamas and took the jeans to wash them, according to the notice the resident Chansey would empty the machines and fold all items on the table ready to be picked up the next morning, so I left,

The boys had herded the pokemon back to our room, I dropped down onto my bed and before my head hit the pillow Coral and Nina had dived on top of me, Chimchar climbed onto the empty bunk above me to sleep, Barry was on the bottom bunk opposite me with Lucas above him, they too had their pokemon cuddled up comfortably "night Sy" the assistant said before rolling over,

"Goodnight Lucas, night Barry"

"Jelly and banana Pikachu"

We were silent for a couple moments before the two of us burst into uncontrollable giggles at Barry's sleep talking.

* * *

I woke with a jerk a few hours later because Chimchar thought it would be funny to jump on my stomach, he clutched his middle and rolled on the floor laughing until I grabbed his pokeball and forcefully returned him, he wouldn't be happy with me that was for sure,

"I wonder if it's too late for Rowan to take him back…" I mumbled tiredly, blinking silver eyes at the other side of the room tiredly I was surprised to see that one of the beds was empty, but it wasn't Barry's as I'd expected, Lucas's bed had been made and Turtwig was missing, his bag was still in the room though,

Silently I picked myself up and unlocked the door, Barry let out a snore and rolled over but didn't awake so I crept out into the hall with bare feet and subconsciously I realised that I was still holding onto the fire chimp's pokeball, the kitchen light was on, peeking around the corner I found my new friend at the table with a hot drink and his starter beside him with a drink of his own, I smiled as I made myself known and had to forego laughing when he almost spilt his chocolate down his front,

"Syren!" Lucas wasn't wearing his hat and he looked very different without it, he was still in his own sleeping attire, long black pants and a white shirt, so at least that meant he wasn't going to sneak out early,

"What're you doing up?" I asked, still sniggered as I took a seat beside him and placed the pokeball on the table, Turtwig looked at it for a moment before tapping it with his nose and releasing Chimchar,

"Barry's snoring" he answered, I snorted "how did you sleep through it?"

"I…I've known him…for…for ten years!" I laughed loudly and tried to stifle them but with no avail "I don't even notice, I'm sorry!" he looked a little embarrassed but managed to push it down, Chimchar was now sharing Turtwig's drink with him,

"Why are you up then?"

I brushed back my tangled locks "Chimchar" I sighed "he thought it would be fun to wind me painfully as I slept"

"He doesn't like you does he?"

"What makes you say that?" we winced as the monkey shot me a glare "take him please"

"Your attitude probably isn't helping"

"What attitude? He's attacked me every time we've been together!"

"He's just naughty"

"You're telling me!"

The dark haired boy shrugged, I reached up and ran my hand through his locks; he stiffened before relaxing "Sy?"

"Sorry" I pulled my hand back quickly "it's always under a hat so I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a wig or something" he raised his eyebrows but couldn't stop the chuckles that broke through though he tried his hardest, whilst he was busy trying to regain his breath I'd stolen his hot chocolate and taken a sip, Lucas grabbed it back as I licked my upper lip clean "Chansey make you that?" he nodded and gulped down the last of it "it's nice"

"You know that there's an old wives tale about using other peoples cups and forks and stuff?"

"Hm?"

"Supposedly it's an indirect kiss"

I blinked at him, he was blushing lightly "then me and Barry must have kissed tons of times without knowing it" I giggled at last "aw man…wait till he hears that!" I got up to leave "the sun is starting to rise" looking back at the assistant I saw he had picked up Turtwig and was getting ready to follow me "do you want to go watch it?" I held my arm out and Chimchar was nice enough to climb onto my shoulder and not pull my hair,

Lucas grinned "sure"

* * *

Rose: I don't have much to say right now,

Review please!


	5. Jubilife to Oreburgh City

Rose: Dum, dum, dum, I've got nothing else to do so I decided to write another chapter, aren't you lucky?

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

"What are you two doing?"

Lucas and I looked behind us to see Barry in the doorway of the pokemon centre, fully dressed and with Piplup on his shoulder, the assistant and I were still in our pyjamas, having just finished watching the sunrise, my blond friend looked tired and annoyed though he was eating a cereal bar, obviously he'd woken up early like he always does and had been expecting us to be asleep, he must have thought we'd gone without saying goodbye,

"Watching the sun come up, we couldn't sleep" I answered him before standing up "c'mon Chimchar, time to get the others and get ready to leave" he wailed in understanding and beat his fists on his chest, unfortunately he was still on my shoulder so the action almost caused me to fall over,

I collected my now clean jeans from the wash room and changed in the ensuite bathroom of our room, coming out in the same attire as the previous day, after packing up my bag and making sure Nina, Coral and Chimchar were all fed and ready to leave I met the boys outside, Barry still looked a little upset and Lucas was fitting his hat, Chimchar had refused to go back in his ball so Coral had to relinquish her position on my shoulder to him and was sulking inside her own pokeball, Piplup was by Barry's foot and Lucas was holding Turtwig under his arm "so where are you two going?" the dark haired boy asked, I shrugged but Barry had extracted his map,

"There's a Gym in Oreburgh" he read before grinning "that's where I'm headed!"

"I guess I'll go there too then" I smiled after taking his map from him to double check,

"Then this is where we separate for a while" Lucas said sadly "I'm returning to Sandgem to meet with the Professor" I held my hand and he shook it,

"See ya later then" we watched him disappear in the concrete jungle, then Barry and I travelled north to the edges of the city, there were three paths, continuing north would lead us to Floaroma Town, west would take us to Canalave City and east, where we needed to go, was the direction of Oreburgh,

We stepped out onto Route 203 and Barry cried out "ALRIGHT! GYM BATTLE HERE I COME!" I covered my ears at the loud noise and Chimchar mimicked me "Sy, you and I have to battle" I grabbed a pokeball "but not right now…when I've caught more pokemon, then we can battle, okay?"

"Okay" I relented, my friend smirked,

"You will go down…later!" Piplup readied himself by holding onto his trainers scarf, he did it with good reason because as he finished talking Barry sprinted off into the grass, Chimchar and I shared a rare moment as we were left behind laughing at his exuberance,

Glancing at the monkey I grinned "well…I guess we should get going, otherwise he'll have all his badges before we've even got one…am I right?" he nodded and smiled and together we kicked up dust as we strolled beside the grass rather than through it.

* * *

I got to the entrance of the Oreburgh Gate with little to no trouble, we fought some wild Bidoof but even if I had happened to have pokeballs on hand I wouldn't have captured them…they seemed a little dim, often letting Chimchar nail them with a powerful scratch attack as they just sat there, on the plus side the battles were letting us bond slightly,

The Oreburgh Gate was a long tunnel filled with rock pokemon and darkness seeking ones, my one fire type had to use his tail in order to lead the way for me because it was rather dark, but even with his help I kept tripping or stubbing my toe, when I yelped in pain after jabbing myself in the side with a rock there was a number of cries from above and with Chimchar's light I was able to see many blue, eyeless bat like pokemon diving towards us "AHHHHHH!" we screamed and started running, the bats right behind us "I SEE LIGHT!" from up ahead there was a small spot of sunlight bursting through, we started running faster and the bats were gaining,

With a final leap we dived through and rolled in the dirt coughing, the bats hadn't followed us and I could only assume that they didn't respond well when being out of the caves "Chim…"

I practically hacked up a lung when I brushed the dust from my jacket and pants "typical, these were just washed last night!" Chimchar leapt onto my shoulder and with one final look at the Gate we continued on down the path, in the distance about a mile away I spotted red tracks, as we drew closer I could see a large pile of some kind of black stuff, passing through the space in the mountains I finally arrived in Oreburgh City, it was very drab looking and the buildings were all spaced apart widely, there were vents almost everywhere and when I bent down to inspect one a rush of stale hot air blew over me,

There was a Pokemart nearby, and with a passing thought I dug around in my pockets and extracted all the money I had with me, about 3000 Poke, collected from past birthdays and Christmases, entering the mart I was glad to see that it would be enough to buy a few potions, I'd need them if I was to face the gym and for when I was caught without a Pokemon Centre nearby, as an after thought I also bought three pokeballs, no doubt I would need them eventually,

"Alright…where to first?" I asked the monkey "the gym for a battle? Or should we train?" he shrugged,

I hummed and ran a hand through my ashy locks, tapping my foot in thought I decided it would be best to check out the gym and see what kind of competition we were up against;

The Gym was located in the middle of the city, it was a tall impressive looking building, the sign on the door said I should enter if I wanted a challenge but inside it was empty, there was a large arena with seated stands on either side but from what I could tell there was no one around,

As I stepped back outside a boy was walking past "are you looking for the Gym Leader?" he asked, I nodded "if he's not here then he'll be in the Mines, everybody knows that" he laughed as he walked off,

"Not me apparently" I muttered with distain, the mines were in the southern most part of the city and it seemed as though anyone could waltz in whenever they wanted because nobody stopped me as I descended the steps into the tunnel, unlike the Gate it was well lit with lanterns on the walls, miners smiled at me as they walked past,

"Going for some training?" one inquired,

"Looking for the Gym Leader, do you know where he is?" the man had a Machoke with him and they both tapped their chins in thought,

"Keep going down this path and then turn right, that's where I last saw him" I thanked him and began to leave "oh! But be careful, there's a pretty nasty wild pokemon been running about lately, even Roark can't seem to stop it"

"What kind of wild pokemon?"

He shrugged "no idea, whatever it is it wandered down from Mount Coronet and got lost in these here mines, now it's causing trouble wherever it goes"

Chimchar and I gulped "we'll be careful"

After being left alone in the empty tunnels I began to feel nervous, there wasn't anyone else around except for Chimchar but even so it felt like someone was watching me, from behind I heard some rocks shift and clack against each other and spun around quickly but there was nothing "char?"

"Did you see anything?" the pokemon shook his head "but you heard that right?" he nodded this time,

"Okay, you keep a look out from behind as I walk forward" to do this he climbed onto my head and sat up straight, I continued walking forwards but now I was on edge, the miners words kept ringing in my ears about the wild pokemon,

Chimchar shrieked and I twisted around in time to see a small green pokemon vanish behind some rocks and the walls began to crumble, I screamed and when I went to run I tripped and landed on the floor, I winded myself and coughed but now the ceiling was caving in, grabbing Chimchar I made sure he was shielded under me because I wasn't going to get away in time,

"Onix stop them!" I looked up in time to see a giant rock snake above me using its body to stop the rocks from hitting us, when the tremors had ended the pokemon backed away down the tunnel and someone stepped into the light "are you alright?" they asked,

It was a man a few years older than myself, he was tall with shoulder length burgundy coloured hair, most of which was hidden under a hard hat, he wore black rimmed glasses and protective mining clothes with a black shirt under his jacket with boots and gloves "yeah…yeah I'm fine" I nodded and sat up, Chimchar groaned "what happened?"

"The wild pokemon used Rock Slide, you were lucky I heard you scream or you would have been crushed" he helped me up and I dusted myself off,

"I don't see why I bother washing my clothes…" I muttered "they always get filthy the very next day" the man laughed "hi, I'm Sy"

"Roark" I shook his hand,

"Thanks for saving me" he smiled,

"No problem, but I think we should get out of here before it comes back" I nodded and followed him back down the way we'd come, it was a little more difficult because we were forced to climb over the rocks left over from the attack but once we were past that it was easy "the pokemon must have run back to the entrance" he said "keep on the lookout Onix!" the pokemon roared and slithered on ahead,

"When did this pokemon arrive?"

"About a week ago, there was a bad storm and lots of pokemon came down from the mountains to shelter themselves in the mines like they often do, it got lost in the tunnels and so didn't leave when the rest of its kind did; now its scared and alone and its taking it out on anyone who comes into what can now be dubbed as 'its territory'"

The fire monkey and I nodded in understanding "can't anyone catch it? I mean, it is a pokemon isn't it?"

Roark sighed "I've been trying to catch it since it started causing problems, if we can't get rid of it we can't reach our quotas of coal, but its so fast and knows these mines almost as well as I do that its so hard to pin it down"

I laughed "pity, what pokemon is it?"

"I'm not actually sure, I've only seen glimpses of it but one thing I know it that it's a rock type, which makes me even more determined to catch it"

"You like rock types?"

"I'm a rock type specialist; just call me Roark the Rock!"

Something clicked in my head "you aren't the Gym Leader are you?" he grinned,

"That I am, why? Are you looking for a challenge?"

"Yup!" I punched my hand "that's why I came down into these mines, to look for you"

He chuckled "alright, once we're out of the mine then we'll head over to the Gym, how does that sound?"

I lit up the screen of my violet Poketch to check the time; it was around midday "I think I'd like to get some lunch first"

"In a couple hours then?" I agreed with him,

"LAR!" from up ahead, near the opening of the mines was a silhouette, it turned and ran outside and we started following it hurriedly,

Out in the sunlight we could see the pokemon more clearly, it was a small green reptilian creature with a large horn on the top of its head, there was a red diamond shape on its belly and black diamonds either side of it, it had short arms and legs but all in all it was rather cute,

I pulled out my pokedex "**Larvitar, the Rock Skin Pokemon; the mother lays her eggs deep underground so that the baby is forced to eat its way out after hatching, the parents will not assist it in this task but will remain by the nest until all the babies have emerged, this often leaves them vulnerable to poachers**"

"A Larvitar?" I voiced "aw! It's a baby!"

"Onix use bind!" Roark was set on capturing the pokemon but as his snake went in to attack the small pokemon dodged out of the way and the Onix hit the slag heap which buried it completely, I pulled out my own pokeball,

"Let's go Coral!" the green Totodile emerged with a shower of gold sparkles "use leer!" she landed and pulled a face at the green creature, it shook its head as its defence fell "now use scratch!"

She leapt into the air but instead of drawing her claws she took a deep intake of breath and exhaled a shot of water that hit the Larvitar dead on "that's a water gun!" Roark cried,

"Rock types are weak to water! Coral hit it again!" she danced around and did as I told her, Chimchar cheered her on from my shoulder "you've almost got him!" I clicked a pokeball and threw it strongly "catch it!" the ball hit the weakened pokemon and drew it inside, I waited nervously as it shook three times before the button flashed and it fell still,

Roark frowned "I wanted to catch it!"

"Oops…sorry" I rubbed the back of my head, messing up my unkempt hair, and held out the ball "I sort of did it without thinking…you can have it"

"No you keep it" he returned his Onix which was still stuck under the slag heap thrashing its tail wildly "it wouldn't be fair for me to take it when your pokemon was the one that fought it"

"Are you sure? I really wouldn't mind, I mean, you've been trying to catch it for all week and then I just came in and did it so easily"

He waved me off "no, I only wanted to catch it so it would stop causing trouble in the mines" I pocketed the ball "you'd better take it to the pokemon centre, I'll be waiting at the Gym for you, come by when you're ready, okay?"

I smiled as he took his leave before looking at my brand new pokemon, Chimchar was facing away from me with his arms cross and Coral was watching me curiously "are you mad because I didn't use you to battle Larvitar?" he nodded and I rubbed the top of his head "but you're really weak to rock types, Coral has a resistance to them and I didn't want you to get hurt" he peeked at me "do you understand?"

He turned around and hopped over to me, I opened my arms having expected a hug but instead I cried out in pain as he scratched my leg and started walking away with a pout "CHAR!"

"Guess we're back to square one…" I winced as I fell over from pain.

* * *

Rose: Chimchar and Syren do not get on do they? I wonder how they're going to resolve it,

Review please!


	6. The Oreburgh Gym

Rose: Chapter six for all you people! Thanks for all the reviews,

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

Sitting in the main area of the Pokemon centre I smiled as I watched my four pokemon eat, the Larvitar had been dried by the Nurse and was now happily gulping her food along with the others, Chimchar had cooled off slightly and was back to sitting next to me, Coral was on my other side and Nina the Nidoran was beside the Larvitar on the floor,

"What shall I call you?" I asked my newest member, she blinked up at me "you're as tough as old boots…Boots?" the others laughed and she crossed her arms "that's a no then, well, you're as hard as nails, how about that? Nails?" she tapped her chin before sticking out her tongue "I named Totodile Coral because she's brightly coloured, and Nidoran was named Nina because it had a nice ring to it…maybe a gemstone name? Like Amber or Crystal?" I laughed "Lapis Lazuli? Beryl? You're green…maybe Emerald?" she shook her head "what about Jade?" again this was a 'no', I sighed "we'll come back to it later"

Standing up to stretch I strolled over to the vending machines and pulled out some coins "excuse me?" I looked up from selecting a candy bar to see a boy a couple years younger than me "is that your Chimchar?"

He was pointing to the bench where my pokemon where, said fire type was busy pumping non existent muscles in an attempt to show off "yeah, why?" a thought suddenly occurred to me "look, whatever he broke I'm sorry! I'll pay for what it is and-"

"No, no, he didn't break anything!" the man waved his arms in-front of himself and I stopped "I was wondering where you got him from"

"Oh…" I sighed and relaxed "um…Professor Rowan gave him to me"

The boys face fell "oh…"

"Why did you want to know?"

"I've been looking for a Chimchar for weeks but they're so hard to find in the wild, but everyone I've spoken to that has one always says they got it from Rowan which means it's their starter"

"But Chimchar isn't my starter" I explained, he grinned,

"Really? Then…would you trade with me?"

I coughed slightly "trade?"

"Yeah, it's where two trainers exchange their pokemon"

I looked back at the fire chimp to see him laughing with the others "I dunno…it sounds a little weird, I was hoping to use him in the Gym later so I could see how the two of us connected, I'd also have to ask him how he felt about it"

The boy nodded "I understand, I'll be here in Oreburgh until this evening, just come and find me if you change your mind, my names Rayne"

"Sy" I shook his hand "I'll see you around then?" he nodded and disappeared into the back the of Centre where the rooms were, I returned to the bench "alright guys, I have an announcement to make" they all stopped and stared at me "we're going to challenge the Gym Leader when you're all finished eating and I need to decide who I'm going to use"

As I expected Chimchar turned his back to me and crossed his arms, Coral looked excited and the other two seemed a little confused "Toto!" the little green reptile bounced on the bench happily,

"And I am of course going to use Coral, because Roark uses rock types" the fire type huffed "and I wanted to use Chimchar…" he peeked at from over his shoulder "but it seems like he doesn't want to battle so I guess someone else will have to take his-"

"CHAR!" I was knocked over when the chimp tackled me joyfully, as I landed on my back the other three piled onto me as-well, laughing along,

"Okay, okay" I giggled "you're happy, I get it!" he threw his arms around my neck and cried out "so let's get going!"

* * *

Roark was waiting in the Gym for me when I arrived; he was in the entrance hall with a small round pokemon with two arms and no legs, as I approached I flipped open my pokedex "**Geodude, the Rock Pokemon, this pokemon trains itself by climbing to the tops of mountains using only its strong arms, it will then roll to the bottom in search of food; Geodude is mistaken for rocks in the path and often gets stepped on**"

At the sound of my Pokedex Roark turned around and grinned "I was wondering when you'd show up, how's the Larvitar?"

"She's fine, I'm still trying to figure out a nickname though"

"She?"

I laughed "yeah, it's a girl!"

"Well I'll be…"

"OKAY! I'M READY FOR MY BAT-"

"Oof!"

I landed on my stomach on the stone floor with a heavy weight on my back, craning my neck I saw a shock of spiky blond hair "oh man…whoever got in my way is so gonna be fined!" I kicked Barry off of my with a grunt,

"Idiot!" I moaned, picking myself up, my friend was rubbing the back of his head and when he looked down he grinned,

"Hey Sy! When did you get here?"

"Just now" I muttered in annoyance "God you are a pain sometimes!" Roark was laughing so hard that he had to use the counter his Geodude was sitting on in order to balance himself "thanks for helping!"

He removed his gasses to wipe at his eyes "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just too funny" I brushed my pants off and huffed loudly, Barry hovering over me nervously having realised I was the one he knocked over,

"Man…" I cracked my back and shot both of them a dirty look "can we get this over with?"

"What? No way, I wanna battle first!"

"I did promise Sy" the Leader shrugged "but I'll battle you afterwards, how does that sound?" the blond pouted but nodded all the same,

"Fine" together we walked through another door into a large arena, on either side were large stands, Barry went to take a seat and released his Piplup, it hopped up onto the barrier wall and started cheering, I waved as I took my mark facing Roark,

He smiled "this will be a three on three battle; is that okay?"

I nodded "perfect"

"Alright…go Geodude!" he threw a pokeball and the round pokemon from before appeared, I licked my lips and grabbed a ball from my coat pocket,

"You're on…Chimchar!"

The fire chimp flipped as he landed on the field, I heard my friend in the stands shriek and even Roark looked a little confused "Geodude use stealth rock!" the pokemon crossed its arms before throwing them out, in the process many sharp pointy stones landed on the ground, I frowned,

"Chimchar use ember!" he exhaled a stream of small fire balls that hit the Geodude dead on, but it didn't do much damage as the foe shook it off,

"I would have thought you'd have sent out your Totodile" Roark said,

I grinned "and that's what makes it so surprising" he smirked in understanding,

"Geodude, rock throw!"

"Dodge it!" Chimchar rolled out of the way of most of the rocks but wasn't fast enough to miss them all, he wailed and landed heavily on his back "Chimchar? Can you get up?" he struggled to his feet "great, another ember then follow up with fury swipes!" the Geodude crossed its arms over its face to shield itself but when it dropped them Chimchar appeared in-front of it and started scratching at its face "close range ember! Let's go!"

The Geodude fell to the ground and didn't get back up, the fire type clapped its hands just before it too collapsed on his back, Roark returned his pokemon and I did the same "this round was a tie" he said,

"Yeah" I looked down at my pokeball; then I grit my teeth and clenched my eyes shut as my fingers tightened around it "Chimchar…"

"Time for my second pokemon! Onix!"

The rock snake from before towered over me and roared "Nina!" the Nidoran was summoned and gazed up at the snake nervously "you can do it!" the rocks poked her as she landed but she shook them off,

"WHY DON'T YOU USE A WATER TYPE?" Barry screamed from the sidelines,

I ignored him "tail whip!" we watched as she turned around and wagged her backside at the large pokemon,

"Rock throw!"

"Oh boy…!" I winced as the Nidoran ran around the field tiredly trying to dodge the rocks "poison sting!" she stopped and opened her mouth, hundreds of purple darts flew out and hit the snake, it moaned as the attacks stung, when the darts ceased the Onix looked uncomfortable and then it winced "it's poisoned!" I cheered "all right!"

"Onix, try another rock throw!" this time Nina couldn't dodge,

"Are you okay?" I shouted, she stood up without a second thought and smiled "use another poison sting!"

It was the only move she knew that had a change of doing any real damage to such a large pokemon, the Onix shook the pins off and glared down at the tiny rabbit like creature, Nina trembled "screech!" I covered my ears as the high pitched noise echoed around the room "tackle!"

Nina was caught by the edge of the horn on Onix's head; she flew through the air and landed with a thud "get up!" I called "get up and use poison sting again!" she whined and managed to push herself onto her front legs but after a few tense moments she fell back down, I returned her quickly "you did well Nina, take a good rest" I reached for my third pokeball, everyone knew exactly who I would be calling out now "Coral, we gotta win this!"

The green Totodile landed on the spiky rocks that the Geodude had produced, it looked painful but if it hurt her she didn't show it, the Onix was weak with poisoning, both of us knew it wouldn't last much longer,

I was about to call an attack when Roark held out a pokeball and returned his Onix, I waited for him to send out his final fighter "Cranidos!" this pokemon stood back on its hind legs, it had small arms and a very large head, it was coloured blue and grey "this is my trump card"

"Coral, start this off with water gun!" the water hit the Cranidos in the face and knocked it back a few feet "now rage!" she crouched down and placed her arms in-front of her to shield herself,

"Headbutt!" the Cranidos was incredibly fast as it ran towards Coral, it hit her hard and she rolled away from it,

"Keep it coming…" I whispered,

"Again!"

The attacks kept coming and bruises were forming on Coral's arms and body but she didn't give up "now! Unleash your rage!"

Coral's eyes glowed red and she leapt forwards, her teeth clapped around the foes tail, all the damage she'd taken was worth it as the rock type stumbled about in obvious pain "use pursuit!"

"Get out of the way!" she managed to leapt to the side "now water gun!" the water was twice the size of her last one and it hit the Cranidos on the side, it fell down and fought to get back up; it succeeded but just barely,

"Clever, you let me attack your Totodile so that its Torrent ability would be activated" the Gym Leader looked very impressed,

"Uh…sure" I grinned "that's exactly what I was doing!" Coral raised her eyebrows at me but I ignored her "one more time should do it" the powerful water gun was all it took to wipe out his pokemon "now there's just the weakened Onix to go" I cheered,

She grinned and we waited for him to send it out but he shook his head as he held onto the pokeball "I can't let my pokemon fight in such condition" he said "I forfeit"

"What?"

"You've defeated my strongest team member, I don't have a chance of beating you with my poisoned Onix, you're the victor" he stepped over me and smiled, I blinked in confusion "I present you with the Coal Badge as proof of your victory" he held out a small bronze coloured badge, it looked a little bit like a pokeball but more angular, I cocked my head and grinned,

"Neat…now where shall I put it?" I began to pin it to my scarf but Roark stopped me,

"Don't you have a badge case?"

"A what now?"

He rubbed his neck "we give them out at the front desk, I'll get you one when I've finished battling your friend" I nodded and went to meet Barry in the stands, Roark left the room to tend to his pokemon,

"He's gone to heal them" I said when Barry asked why he was leaving "so, how many pokemon do you have?"

"Still only two" he sighed,

I grinned "well I have four now" he groaned but I refused to show off my new Larvitar because I knew it would drive him crazy if he didn't know "are you all ready?"

He puffed out his chest and Piplup did the same "yeah, I'm all ready for my first Gym Battle; I'll beat him in half the time you did!"

I laughed and slumped down into the seats "good luck buddy" Coral was curled up asleep, tired from her fight and Piplup was upset because she wouldn't see him battle "here he comes" I said as the Leader returned "don't chock…"

He glared at me as he went out to meet with Roark.

* * *

Rose: I like Barry, he's so funny,

Review please!


	7. Return to Jubilife

Rose: Time for another new chapter, I hope you like it,

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

The Cranidos hit the small Piplup, knocking it back so it rolled across the ground, this time round Roark had only used two pokemon because that's all Barry owned, his Onix was still recovering so he had healed his Geodude and Cranidos, the former had defeated the blondes Starly but had lost to Piplup and now the two remaining pokemon were battling it out,

"Piplup bubble beam!" the small penguin shot a stream of glowing bubbles at the dinosaur pokemon, they hit it on the head and it fell down in a faint,

"Alright Barry!" I cheered as the Leader handed over his badge to the boy, I grabbed Coral who was shocked awake at the movement and ran down to the field "now we both have one!" we touched the badges together like we were in some kind of club, Roark laughed,

"Now, where's the next Gym!" he started rummaging in his bag for his map and Piplup cried out in exhaustion,

I snatched it from him "geeze, you just won your first match! Shouldn't you at least wait a minute before trying to get to the next one?" he grabbed the map back,

"Why wait? Otherwise we'll miss the League deadline!"

I blinked silver eyes at him dully "no you won't, there's still months to go" he pouted and I pinched his cheek "aw, aren't you adorable?" he shook me off quickly,

"If you're really determined then I'd suggest Eterna City" the miner cut in "it's directly north from here" the two of us grinned,

"That's good" I looked down at Coral "c'mon girl, let's go take care of others" she nodded sleepily but as we reached the entrance hall of the gym I clicked my fingers "you were going to give me a badge case!" I pointed at the Gym Leader,

He smiled "I was wasn't I?" going behind the main counter he lifted out a box "here, take your pick" I chose a lavender coloured one and pressed my new Coal badge into the sponge gleefully, Barry grabbed an orange one and did the same "now your badges will be safe as you travel"

"My bag is back at the Pokemon Centre" I mused, then I grabbed Chimchar's pokeball "I've got some things I need to take care of before I leave for Eterna, I suppose you'll be leaving right away?" I raised a black eyebrow at the amber eyed boy,

"I'll heal my pokemon first" he huffed "but then I'll be right on the way to my next badge"

I sighed as he ran from the Gym "I'll see you around Roark?" the burgundy haired man smiled in response "I'll be sure to let you know how Larvitar is doing sometime" I waved to him as I followed after my friend.

* * *

After securing my badge case in my bag I checked out of my room and returned to the waiting room, my pokemon were all healed and Chimchar was on my shoulder looking around,

I too was scanning the room for someone I knew; when I saw them I hurried over "Rayne?" the boy turned around and grinned,

"Sy? Hey, how did the gym battle go?"

"Great, we won" Rayne was shorter than me with dark blue hair covered in a green beanie, he wore a black jacket and pants with boots,

"Awesome! Is this your Chimchar?" I nodded and he petted the fire type on the head, Chimchar cooed and pressed further into the boy before taking it one step further and crawling onto his shoulder from mine "he likes me"

"Yeah…" I smiled sadly "did you still want to…?"

His eyes lit up "yeah! I'm still game!"

"Could I have a minute with him?" he nodded again and I lifted Chimchar up and held him to my chest "I'll be right back"

I took a seat on the bench outside the centre; placing the chimp beside me I sighed and stared out across towards the mines "chim?" he drew my attention and when I turned to look at him I placed a hand on his head, he blinked up at me in confusion,

"Chimchar…you don't like me very much do you?" he opened his mouth and closed it, then he lowered his head "that's what I thought, the day we met when Barry took Piplup and Lucas took Turtwig, it was expected that I take you, am I right?" he nodded "I must have really hurt your feelings when I said I didn't want you, and I'm sorry for that…but even though you eventually came into my hand we've never been able to get over that first encounter have we? No matter what I've done you haven't warmed up to me for longer than a couple hours. That battle in the gym opened my eyes and I just think that maybe…you'll never reach your full potential if you have to stay with me" I was suddenly aware of him hugging onto my arm and rubbing his cheek against it,

"Char…"

"I care about you Chimchar and I'd love it if we could become close but I don't see that happening; there's a trainer inside that is really interested in you and I think it would be for the best if you were to be given a fresh start with a new trainer…what do you think?" he looked up at me teary eyed "you don't have to, this is your choice Chimchar and I'll support you whatever you decide"

I waited as he blinked and some tears escaped from his eyes "chim"

"You want to go with the other trainer?" he nodded and I picked him up "you'll always be my friend Chimchar" he wrapped his arms around my neck and we hugged each other tightly. After returning inside I smiled weakly at Rayne "we're ready"

"Cool, now all you have to do is choose what pokemon you want in return for him"

"Any fire type will do just fine" I said softly, I waited as he went over to the pokemon transfer unit, after placing a pokeball on one side another appeared on the other,

"My sister just caught this one in Kanto to give to me, she called her Flare; I hope you don't mind"

"Nah, I think it's a nice name" beside the transfer unit was a trading machine, I returned Chimchar and we placed both our pokeballs on one side "how does this work, why can't we just hand over the pokemon to each other?"

"It reprograms the data of the pokeball, telling it that the pokemon inside has a new trainer" Rayne explained "it prevents people from just stealing pokemon and attempting to pass them off as their own"

"Oh" I nodded and watched the silhouette of Chimchar pass across the screen, then the shadow of Rayne's pokemon passed over onto my side and the two pokeballs fell into the dishes, I picked it up and looked over to see him release his new team member, Chimchar bounced onto his shoulder,

"I really appreciate this, Sy" I nodded and shook his hand "you don't know what this means to me"

"I think I do" I smiled and looked at the pokemon "and I think I know what it means for Chimchar too" the chimp grinned "I'll see you again some time, buddy" he nodded and I released Nina, Coral and Larvitar "say goodbye guys, this is where Chimchar leaves us" they looked up at me in confusion and then over at their old team-mate, he waved and they did the same, Rayne then started for the exit, we remained inside the Centre, still waving even after they'd gone,

After a few minutes I sighed and held up the ball containing the fire type I'd traded "toto?"

"Nido?"

"Lar?"

"We have a new team member, shall we say hello?" they all nodded and I pressed the button on the red and white ball, out popped a tall orange lizard with a flame on its tail,

"Char, char!" she stretcher her arms above her head before looking over us lazily,

"Flare?" she nodded "I'm Syren, your new trainer" she tilted her head and I pulled out my pokedex "let's see what kind of pokemon you are"

"**Charmander, the Lizard Pokemon, the flame on its tail is an indication of its health, if it ever goes out then the pokemon will die, Charmander is a stubborn pokemon and very loyal to a trainer that it trusts, so loyal in fact that it has been known to wait for weeks in the same spot if its trainer has abandoned it**"

"So you're a Charmander?" I crouched down and stroked Flare on the top of her head "I hope you and I can become good friends" she crooned and I returned everyone to their balls except for Coral who settled onto my shoulders, after checking the map on the wall I left the centre and started north,

I was about half a mile out of the City when I reached a steep embankment, when I tried to climb up I didn't get far and slid back down, the sand was slippery and shifted under my feet, it was impossible to climb; with a sigh I extracted my map "dile?"

"It looks like if we double back to Jubilife City and head north we'll reach somewhere called Floaroma Town, beyond that is a place called Eterna Forest and if we get through there we'll be in Eterna City" I grinned at green pokemon and she mimicked it "man…that means we have to go back through the Oreburgh Gate…" I shuddered "I just hope those bat things don't attack me again"

* * *

Barry had left the city long before me but since I hadn't met him on the way back I assumed that he'd known that he had to go the long way and was probably already half way there by now,

Stepping back into Jubilife City was one of the best moments of my life, I wasn't cut out for rural living it seemed, the caves didn't agree with me, every time I stepped into one a Zubat, as I'd since discovered, would waste no time in attacking me!

It was still light so there would be no point wasting time staying at the Pokemon Centre for the night, if I hurried I could probably make it half way to Floaroma Town,

Something occurred to me however that made me realise that I needed to visit the Pokemon Centre, I knew I'd left it too late and was going to get yelled at whether I did this now or later,

Sitting in one of the chairs I dialled in the number for home and waited for my mothers face to appear on the screen, when it did she looked mad "I told you call me often! This isn't often!"

I laughed "well, I sort of…forgot" her face reddened and I quickly pulled out my badge case "but I have good reason, look!" I shoved the case into the screen and she gasped,

"You have a badge? Oh my goodness that's wonderful…but I thought you'd do contests"

I lowered the case "what? When did I give any indication that I wanted to do contests?"

"I just assumed, darling, I mean, you used to love watching me participate"

"Yeah and so did Barry, but he's doing Gym battles and I want to challenge him"

My mother pouted "aw, but I wanted a contest winning daughter"

"What about a Sinnoh Champ daughter?" I giggled, she thought for a moment,

"I suppose that'll do" we both burst into laugher,

"Mom, I have to go I'm losing daylight, I'll call you the minute I reach Floaroma Town; is that okay?" she nodded and smiled,

"Be safe; and next time you'll have to show me all your pokemon"

"Bye mom, love you" we hung up and I sighed, slinging my bag over my shoulder I fixed my oversized coat and dusted off my jeans once more "I'll change these tomorrow and wash them when we reach our destination" picking up Coral again I settled her on my shoulder "time to go, girl" she croaked and we started to the north of the City like I had that morning "it feels like days ago, not hours, man…time can really fly when you're having gym battles" the Totodile sniggered in my ear,

As we reached the borders of the city I saw a familiar red hat "toto?"

"Is that Lucas?" there was a white haired figure beside him with a briefcase and wearing a brown trench coat "Lucas!" I shouted, he turned around from talking to the Professor and grinned,

"Syren!" he ran towards me,

"Sy" I corrected, he stopped in-front of me and panted, bending over to regain his breath, Rowan came up as-well but at a much slower pace,

"How are you?" he smiled cheerfully,

"I'm fine, thank you" pulling out my badge case again I flashed it open to them "lookie, lookie!"

"You got the Oreburgh badge?" the assistant asked "wow! What about Barry?"

"He has one too, but I haven't seen him since he won it, he must be halfway to Eterna by now" Rowan laughed throatily,

"I wouldn't put it past him" I smiled "are you going that way too?"

"Yeah" I answered "I was hoping to make some tracks before-"

"OI!" I was cut off and we turned to see two men, they were wearing outfits similar to the one the man was wearing who'd tried to attack us with the Wurmple, green bowl cut hairstyles, and the grey and white outfits "are you Professor Rowan?"

The old man frowned "yes, I am Professor Rowan but I was in the middle of a conversation"

"C'mon gramps; leave the kids, you and I need to have a chat" one of the men motioned for him to follow them "you have some research that our Boss wants"

Rowan gripped his briefcase more securely "I'm sorry, this research is special"

"Hand it over!"

Lucas stepped in-front of his mentor "leave Professor Rowan alone! That research has been collected by him over years of travelling; you can't expect him to just give it to you!"

"Butt out kid, the grown ups are talking!" the man shoved Lucas and he fell to ground, I helped him up and he growled "that's it, go with your girlfriend until the Professor and us are done" he blushed lightly and pulled out a pokeball,

"Syren, help me teach these guys a lesson" I nodded and Coral hopped to the floor beside the newly released Turtwig,

"Let's go!"

* * *

Rose: That's it for now, until next time,

Review please!


	8. Jubilife to Floaroma Town

Rose: Let's get on with the battle! Woo! Sorry for the long wait.

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

"Coral use water gun!"

"Turtwig, razor leaf!"

The two pokemon's attacks hit the Glameow and Stunky and they fell back "no chance!" I whooped as Coral leapt into my arms happily, the green haired men returned their pokemon and one of them shot us a dirty look,

"This isn't over you brats" they turned and ran from the City and into the distance,

"Is the green hair and weird clothes some new fashion statement I haven't heard of?" I asked as I looked at Lucas and Rowan, the former shrugged but the latter was staring out in the direction the men had run,

"It's best if we keep an eye on anyone matching their descriptions" he said "they seem like they could be troublesome if left alone"

The assistant and I looked at each other and then back at the Professor "duly noted" I said as I pushed my Totodile onto my shoulders "but I need to make tracks if I'm going to get to Floaroma Town by tomorrow at the least"

I turned to leave after bidding farewell "I'll go with you!" looking back I saw Lucas frozen like a Stantler caught in some headlights, Rowan was staring at him oddly "I mean…um…the Valley Windworks are in Floaroma Town and there's a rumour of a rare pokemon that appears there…I want to catch it!"

Rowan was chuckled quietly as he covered his mouth but I grinned "cool, let's go then we're losing daylight!" I started leaving and heard him run up beside me, he twisted around to wave at his mentor "there's supposed to be some kind of cave up a head, it'll take us to the top of that small mountain" I pointed to it, it wasn't Mount Coronet, it was a separate and much smaller mountain "we can camp out on one of the ledges and then continue through the woods, we should be there by lunchtime tomorrow" Lucas nodded though I was pretty sure he hadn't heard a word I said "what's this pokemon you're looking for anyway?"

"I don't know, it's supposed to be some kind of balloon pokemon that can only be found at the Windworks"

"Balloon pokemon?" I thought about it in my head and burst into laughter "it sounds so cute!"

We continued down the path and the trees began to thin out, by now the sun was getting low in the sky "I hope it doesn't take too long to get through the cave" the dark haired boy mumbled,

"It shouldn't do, apparently there were stairs carved inside to make it easier for trainers to get through, it should be a simple 'go inside, walk up the stairs, leave' kind of thing" I started fishing in my bag to pull my tent to the top of the pile "you have a tent right?"

"Er…"

I sighed "you can share mine, but I draw the line at letting you in my sleeping bag" he started chocking but I wasn't sure if it was from trying to not laugh or if he was shocked at the notion of sharing a sleeping bag "are you okay?"

"I'm fine…" he coughed, his face was red but I didn't take much notice because we'd reached the opening of the cave "so you said there should be stairs?"

"Yup…" I stopped before going inside "there'll be Zubat won't there?" he nodded and I sighed before shielding my head "okay…I'm ready"

* * *

"AHHHHHH!" I came running from the exit on the ledge of the mountain screaming loudly as the Zubat chased me, this time they followed me outside but when I dived to the ground they flew over me and into the now dark sky "I hate those things!"

Lucas appeared at the opening panting with Coral close behind "wow, you can really run!"

I stood back up and dusted myself off before coughing shortly "so…where should we camp?"

He took off his hat and used it to wipe his forehead "uh…close to the trees would be good, they'll give us shelter"

I nodded and pulled out my tent, because it was a pop up all we had to do was peg it down, when that was done we tossed our bags inside and released our pokemon, Nina, Coral, Larvitar and Flare began playing immediately, Turtwig joined in but there was another pokemon that Lucas had let out that sat cross legged beside him, it was yellow and brown with a fox like head, large clawed feet and hands and a long tail, it looked to be sleeping as I flipped open my pokedex,

"**Abra, the Psi Pokemon, it sleeps for over eighteen hours a day but is still conscious, using its psychic abilities it can teleport to safety if danger arises, this pokemon must get its eighteen hours otherwise it loses the ability to harness its powers**"

"I think a saw one of these on my way back from Oreburgh" I said, cocking my head to one side,

"Yeah, I caught it just before the Professor and I met up with you" he petted the Abra on the head but it continued to snore "where's Chimchar?"

I smiled sadly "we weren't getting along and he bonded with a trainer in Oreburgh so we decided to trade"

"Oh…" he glanced at Flare "you got her in return?" I nodded and rubbed the Charmander's head "what about the Larvitar?"

"Caught her in the mines, she was causing trouble apparently but I have yet to give her a name"

"Why?"

"I can't think of one" I sighed "and the ones I do think of she doesn't seem to like"

We were leaning back in the opening of the tent with our legs out in-front of us, the moon was out and stars were beginning to appear, by now the pokemon had settled down and were curling up to fall asleep, the only light source available was the flame on Flare's tail, I checked the time on my Poketch, it had just gone seven,

"What about…Terra?" he said and I frowned "or…Rocky?" this time I laughed "what?"

"It's not exactly imaginative is it?" the boy grinned,

"Diamond"

"Hm?"

"It's the hardest mineral on earth" I pouted in thought and then matched his grin,

"Dia" he raised his eyebrows "it's a shortened version of Diamond" looking over at the newly named pokemon we saw she was sound asleep, curled up between Coral and Nina with Flare on the far end, Turtwig had since climbed into his trainers lap and fallen asleep there and Abra hadn't moved the entire time we'd been talking "I like it…Dia" looking over at Lucas my grin turned into a smile "thanks, I'd have never thought of that on my own"

He blinked "no problem"

I kicked off my shoes and placed them outside the tent before crawling inside "if we want to be at Floaroma Town by lunch then it'd be best if we had an early start, right?" the dark haired boy agreed with me as he climbed into the tent too,

"These aren't very big are they?" he stated, we had to lie on our sides to make enough room for each other "maybe I should buy one"

"What do you mean 'maybe'?" I teased, we left the tent door open because the pokemon were still outside, all except for Turtwig who'd been placed by our feet "night"

"Night Sy"

* * *

"Char!"

"Toto!"

"Lar!"

"Turtwig!"

"Nido!"

We were awoken with jerks the next morning when the pokemon started yelling, when the two of us poked our heads out of the tent we saw a man come out of the mountain, he was tall with ashy hair and was wearing a long brown trench coat and a reddish brown suit under it, he saw us staring at him when he continued walking down the path and quickly tried to hide behind a rock, Lucas and I raised our eyebrows at each other before scrambling for our shoes and rushing over to him,

"Excuse me, why are you hiding?" I asked, the man straightened up and held his chin,

"Ah, it seems you spotted me!"

"Who wouldn't…" I muttered,

"You spotted me because you were drawn to me no doubt, am I right?" we opened our mouths but he cut us off "my name is…no wait, that's confidential, call me Looker, everyone else does!"

"We were drawn to you because we thought you might be an escaped mental patient" I mumbled to my companion,

My friend nodded slowly before introducing himself "I'm Lucas"

"Sy"

"Yes, yes, children can you tell me if you've seen anyone suspicious looking?"

"You mean other than y…oof" Lucas elbowed me hard to cut me off "there were the green haired guys from yesterday, do they count?"

"Oh yeah, they tried to steal the Professors research!" Lucas snapped his fingers as I rubbed my ribs,

"Them, them! They are Team Galactic and they are bad people, please tell me if you see them again for I am on their trail!" with that he started running north, the same way we were going to be heading once we were packed up,

I sighed "that was…weird"

"That's one way to put it" the assistant and I crossed our arms and shook our heads before returning to the tent, we were going to feed the pokemon when we reached Floaroma Town,

As we walked we let our pokemon roam, when I told Larvitar the new name we'd come up with for her she'd jumped around and grinned "Dia, Dia, Dia" I sang "I love it! It's perfect!" grinning over at Lucas I saw him give a small smile "thank you, thank you, thank you!" with that said I threw one arm over his shoulders to give him a hug "you are the best!"

"You said thanks last night"

"But not enough" I argued cheerfully "pokemon nicknames are special, they give the pokemon individuality the same as you or I, which means that real thought has to have gone into it!" withdrawing my arm he laughed and we turned to watch our pokemon playing between the trees and long grass,

After about an hour or so the scent of fragrant flowers wafted through the air towards us, all of us craned our necks and took deep inhales of the sweet smell "I think we're almost there" the assistant said, I brushed my mid-back hair from my face before quickly returning all my pokemon, Lucas did the same with Turtwig and Abra, just as he did the trees opened out and we stepped into a wide field of flowers,

"Oh wow!" I gasped in awe, in the middle of the field was a pokemon centre and beside it was a pokemon mart "I promised my mom I'd call" I stated to Lucas as we walked through the blooms "achoo!"

"Bless you"

"Thanks" I sniffed and wiped my nose with my sleeve, once inside the centre I made a bee-line for the phones and dialled for home "hey mom" I smiled when she appeared on screen "we're at Floaroma Town"

"Is it nice?"

"Very" I answered, she nodded in understanding "after we're all done here I'll be on my way to Eterna, do you want me to call from there too?"

"What's after Eterna?"

I pulled out my map "hm…Hearthome" I looked up when I heard her giggle "what?"

"Nothing, nothing, darling, you don't have to call me in Eterna but make sure to visit the Contest Hall in Hearthome when you get there"

I tilted my head in confusion "o…kay, why?"

"Just do it!" her voice turned sharp and I nodded frantically, then she went back to being sweet "so what pokemon have you caught?"

"After leaving home I added a Larvitar and a Charmander to my team" she clapped her hands,

"I'm looking forward to seeing them!" from behind her came the sound of beeping "oh, my poffins are done, bye darling"

"Bye"

It was much hotter in this town than in Jubilife so I shed my thick coat and scarf, leaving me with my long sleeved white shirt and jeans, Lucas was on the other side of the centre talking on a phone, as I passed him I saw Rowan on the screen and waved, he smiled and waved back but when Lucas turned around I was already by the benches packing my coat and scarf into my bag,

Letting Coral and the others out I got some food from the kitchens and gave them all a big lunch since we hadn't had breakfast, my dark haired friend came over a few minutes later and fed his Abra and Turtwig too "the Professor says that he'll meet me in Hearthome"

"Really?"

"Yeah, apparently there're some statues in Eterna City that are really interesting, he wants me to look at them and then give him the findings in Hearthome"

"Looks like I'll be stuck with you for a while longer, huh?" I teased as I waited for the pokemon to finish, he pouted "haha, you look like Barry"

At that he crossed his arms "do not!"

"I'm not going to start a 'do not-do to' argument with you" I stated drolly, he laughed "but c'mon, let's go find this balloon pokemon you're looking for"

* * *

Rose: We all know what happened in Floaroma Town in the games, so how am I going to re-write it? Just wait and see!

Review please!


	9. The Windworks

Rose: Thanks for all the hits everyone,

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

We left the town from the eastern exit and headed towards the Valley Windworks by following the river; over the trees we could see the turbines that indicated we were close "so are you going to catch this pokemon?"

"Hopefully" Lucas answered me; we broke out of the trees and into the open,

The Windworks was a huge building with turbines located on the mountains around it and a generator alongside one wall, I whistled "so where should this pokemon be?"

The boy was looking around curiously "I'm not sure, I've just heard that it's supposed to be around the Windworks somewhere" we walked closer with the intention of taking a look around but two men came out of the bushes, men with green hair and grey clothes,

"Oh geeze" I mumbled when we reached them,

"Hold it!" one of the men held out his hand to stop us "you can't go any further, the Windworks is off limits due to…complications" he sniggered quickly,

Lucas and I glanced at each other "oh really? What kind of complications?"

"There's been a power cut" we looked at the still humming generator before raising our eyebrows at him, now he was sweating and grabbed at his partner so they could huddle with their backs to us, I whispered in Luca's ear,

"I got a plan!" I winked before tapping one of the men "please, you have to let me in, my dad's in there!" they stared at me and I forced my eyes to tear up "my mum's really worried about him because he's late home and I just what to tell her that he's fine!"

The men paled slightly "well…um…young lady, we can't let you in because…um…"

"Hey, wait a minute!" the other guy cut him off "there's only one man in there and according to him his daughter is only six years old!" I stiffened,

"I had a growth spurt?" I tried; they reached for their pokeballs "GET HIM!" before they knew what had happened our pokemon had dog piled them and we'd run past "something is very wrong here!" the assistant agreed and together we made it around to the back of the Windworks, after crouching in some bushes we waited for our pokemon to catch up, the men ran past screaming and slammed the door to the building behind them, our pokemon appeared a moment later laughing and shouting and we returned them,

Standing up, Lucas tried the door only to find it locked "who is it?" someone asked,

"Nobody" I replied,

"Oh, okay then"

"Oi, who are you talking to?" someone else shouted from inside,

"I'm talking to nobody!"

I tried to stifle my sniggers but failed and was only stopped when I was elbowed by my friend who had a disapproving expression, the door unlocked and a different green haired man peeked his head out, when he did we rammed into him and pinned him behind the door before Lucas instructed Turtwig to use razor leaf on the woman further down the hallway, with that done we sprinted past them and up the stairs into the main control room,

There were three people, one was a young man with a pale face and clammy skin who was at a computer, behind him was an older man with spiked up grey-blue coloured hair, he was wearing a long white lab coat, the last person was a woman with red hair and wearing a white dress in a similar style to the green haired woman but it stuck out around her knees, she also had high white boots,

"Hey, who let the kids in?" she shouted, from below us we heard someone whine "fine, I guess I'll have to deal with this myself!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I held out my arms "first things first…who are you and what are you doing here?"

The woman smirked "you can call me Mars-"

"Isn't that a guy's name?"

"Shut up!" I pursed my lips "and I'm a Commander of Team Galactic!"

Lucas and I were rubbing our heads in confusion "team what?" he asked, a vein popped up on the woman's forehead,

Mars sighed loudly "Team Galactic are looking for a way to re-create the world so that it is much better than our current one"

"Oh…well that doesn't sound so bad!" I replied,

"Syren! These are the people that Looker guy was talking about!" Lucas hissed before pointing a finger at Mars "but what are you doing here?"

The redhead giggled "we're collecting energy for our boss, now run along children there's work to be done"

"Yeah, right" I rolled my silver eyes "not when that guy is in serious need of a shower" the man at the computer looked ready to faint from exhaustion, among other things,

Mars scowled "you aren't going to leave are you?"

"No" we smirked, I summoned Dia and she stood beside Turtwig,

"Fine, let's make a deal…if I win you have to leave, but I'll leave if you win"

"Deal, we'll have a two on two battle" I added, waiting as she pulled out two pokeballs, one released a large feline pokemon with a crescent moon head, it was coloured grey and white and seemed to be wearing some kind of tutu, the other pokemon was a Zubat, I shuddered and everyone stared at me with odd expressions,

"Zubat use bite on Larvitar! Purugly scratch on Turtwig!"

"Dia, dodge it and use bite back!" the rock type jumped into the air but the Zubat made a quick alteration in its flight plan and slammed into her, she was knocked into the computers and we saw sparks light up "are you okay?" I called; she hopped out and winked,

"Turtwig razor leaf!" before the big cat could reach him the turtle had let loose a barrage of leaves that cut into it, but then the Zubat appeared from nowhere and knocked him into the wall, above us the lights flickered,

"Dia used rock slide!" she leapt down to the ground and threw her arms above her head…nothing happened "uh…"

"Where did you expect the rocks to come from?" Mars asked,

"I really don't know" I rubbed my forehead "I guess I just assumed that they'd 'appear' or something"

"What do you think this is? A game?"

Somewhere in the distance a cricket chirped,

"Anyway…use bite again!" this time Dia caught the Zubat by the wing, when they fell to the ground it was crushed under her superior weight,

"Turtwig tackle the Purugly!"

"Turg, turt, turt!" when he hit the cat she took a deep breath and bounced him back,

"Use leer!" I ordered, Dia glared at Purugly and it started shaking, then Turtwig tackled it again, joined by a bite supplied by Dia, the Purugly couldn't fight back against two attacks and cried out as it fell,

"Faint attack!" it vanished into thin air and reappeared behind Dia, using its leg it kicked her and crushed her head into the floor,

"DIA!" Turtwig saved her with a well aimed razor leaf, followed up by a tackle, the rock type looked up at the grass type with an adoring expression before biting Purugly's ankle,

It fainted heavily and Mars was forced to call it back, Lucas and I stood side by side ready to keep fighting even though the pokemon were tired,

The old man who'd been watching from the sides chuckled "well, well, losing to mere children?"

Mars snapped "be quiet Grandpa!" then she frowned at us "fine, you won and I'm a lady of my word" snapping her fingers she motioned for the old man to follow her, when she was gone we looked out of the window to see her, the old man and a few grunts disappear into the trees,

"Thank you, thank you so much!" the man who had been working at the computer stood up shakily "they've been working me non-stop; I haven't seen my family for days!"

We blushed "it was our pleasure" the grey eyed boy beside me said, the man thanked us once more and then took his own leave, after recalling our pokemon we followed suit "now we're free to look for the balloon pokemon"

"Hey" I stopped in the hallway and tugged on Lucas's sleeve "thanks for saving Dia back there"

He blinked "it was no prob-" he cut himself off when I kissed his cheek quickly, as I pulled back I watched his skin redden "SY!"

"What?" I laughed, walking past him to the door, he jogged to catch up to me with his cheeks and nose still dusted pink "where should we look first?"

"I think it would be best to return to the Town, I need to tell Professor Rowan about what just happened" I stared at him and then nodded,

"Okay"

* * *

I was waiting outside the pokemon centre patiently with Coral on my shoulders when a little girl came running up, she was wearing a sundress and had brown hair tied in pigtails "are you one of the ones that saved my daddy?" she asked,

"Uh…"

"Because he says he heard you talk about the balloon pokemon and if you want I can show you where the pokemon is"

"Really?" I smiled as Lucas came outside "hey, this girl knows about the balloon pokemon"

Now the smile was on his face "you do?"

The girl nodded "yup, follow me" we trailed her back to the Windworks, but instead of going around the back we stayed in the front "here, the pokemon shows up here every so often"

"When was the last time you saw it?"

"Last Friday"

"That was exactly one week ago" I pointed out "do you think it will show up again?"

The girl shrugged "I don't know, but it likes the wind that the giant pinwheels make so it probably will come visit"

"Thanks" we said as she returned to the town,

"Oh…my daddy also said something else…" we waited for her to continue, she tapped her forehead in thought "through the trees that way" she pointed north-west "there's an abandoned factory or something and he says there's lots of metal pokemon, sometimes they wander into the Windworks, or at least that's what he says"

"Metal pokemon?" I questioned when the girl was gone,

"Steel types" Lucas explained "usually they evolve from rock types like Onyx; they're very strong with few weaknesses and a high defence" I blinked at him before suddenly sprinting off the way the girl had pointed "Sy! Where are you going?"

"I wanna catch a steel type!" I called before he was lost to my sight.

* * *

Rose: A little short this time, I wonder what kind of pokemon Sy will catch,

Review please!


	10. Route 205 to Eterna Forest

Rose: Yay, new chapter, thanks everyone.

Disclaimer: OC's and plot.

* * *

I kept running until I reached a river and had to stop, across the water I could see a decrepit building that must have been the Ironworks, panting breathlessly I shielded my eyes from the sun and strained my eyes in an attempt to see something on the other side that looked like a steel type,

Eventually something crawled out from beneath a pile of iron, it was small and silver with a big head, I flipped open my pokedex,

"**Aron, the Iron Armour pokemon; this pokemon feeds on iron that it extracts from the earth in the mountains, but sometimes it gets into trouble with humans by eating railroad tracks, as it grows it sheds it armour which can then be used to make products**"

"It's adorable!" I grinned "now, when I checked this thing earlier it said steel types are weak to fire, so…you're on Flare!"

My Charmander leapt out "char, char!" she cried,

"Aim an ember attack at that Aron across the river!" Flare nodded and took a deep breath, the fire hit the pokemon but only just, and afterwards it merely shook itself off "what the…?" when I extracted the pokedex again it told me that Aron was part rock type, which gave it a resistance to fire attacks "bugger!" returning Flare I instead called out Coral "water gun!"

She dived into the water and resurfaced a few feet from Aron, the steel type squeaked as the water burst hit it dead on "Aron!"

"Catch it!" I shouted, tossing the pokeball across the water, it bounced on the shore and then hit it on the head, after being drawn inside I had my Totodile carry it back to me and once the red and white ball was in my hands I cradled it gently "now we have five members on our team" I grinned to her, she mimicked it,

After releasing the tiny steel type I bent down and rubbed its head "Ar…"

"Hey buddy, I'm Syren and you're the newest member of our group! Now what should I call you?" I thought for a few moments "you're a steel type; steel is a metal…Titanium, Titan for short" the pokemon blinked up at me with big eyes before smiling and nodding "come on out everybody and meet Titan!"

The others all crowded around the tiny and timid pokemon, I placed my finger on my chin as he cowered slightly and pulled out my pokedex again "Larvitar?" Dia poked Titan on the forehead and he shook her off,

"Says here you're male and you're also below average height and weight…you must be young, that or you're the runt" I laughed before petting him softly "oh well, you'll grow in time" after everyone had had a chance to greet him and introduce themselves I returned them all apart from Coral "we better get back to Lucas, otherwise he'll come looking for us and might miss his rare pokemon"

* * *

When I returned from my little adventure I found the Assistant sitting on the floor leaning against a tree and scanning the skies for the pokemon that was supposed to appear, I snuck up beside him and tapped him on the shoulder,

"Hey, seen anything?"

"No" he shook his head and I slumped down next to him "did you catch a pokemon?"

Holding up the pokeball I grinned "yup, an Aron and I named him Titan" looking away from him I brushed back my ebony locks out of my face "hey…what's that?"

"What's what?"

"That!" I pointed at the tiny purple spot in the sky behind the turbines; Lucas followed my finger and furrowed his eyebrows,

"I don't know…is it a pokemon?"

"It looks like one" we stood up and started walking towards the cliff to get a better look, as we got closer the purple thing did a cartwheel and rode the turbine gust down until it was behind the rocks "it's gone…" the dark haired boy turned around to face me with a sigh "what do you thing it was?"

I shrugged "I have no idea-" I cut myself off as the little purple thing reappeared behind Lucas, I stared at him and he at me,

"What?" turning his head to the left he looked over his shoulder but the pokemon moved to the right, it happened when he looked that way too, Coral and I giggled wildly "What? What is it?"

He spun around furiously and came face to face with the thing, with a yelp he flew back with his arms flailing and landed flat on his back "Driiiif!" the purple thing sniggered,

Lucas was the one to check it on the pokedex "**Drifloon; the Balloon Pokemon, this pokemon is said to take children who mistake it for a balloon to the underworld, however, it is not very strong so it often gets pulled around instead**" I laughed,

Drifloon was small and round with two string like legs, each with a yellow heart on the end, on its face was a large yellow cross and on top of its head was a puff of white hair, like a cloud "this must be the rare pokemon" he said "it's a ghost/flying…which means both Turtwig and Abra are at a type disadvantage…I guess I'll go with Turtwig since he's stronger"

I stepped back as he called out the little green pokemon "Turt-turt!" it chirped happily,

"Drift…!"

"Razor leaf!" Turtwig shook his head and a flurry of leaves hit the other pokemon; it shook it off and floated about "why isn't it attacking?"

"Maybe it doesn't want to" I answered "or maybe…it just can't do anything when there's no wind about to move it"

Lucas tapped his chin in thought "hm…" he then dropped his bag and started rooting around in it "oh no!"

"What?"

He looked up at me sheepishly "I forgot to buy some pokeballs…" Coral and I both face-palmed and I retrieved my last pokeball from my pocket,

"Here" I said, tossing it to him "make it last, I don't have any more" he grinned in thanks and turned away to face his opponent once more,

"Turtwig use bite!" the turtle pokemon leapt forwards and bit down hard on the side of the Drifloon's body, it squealed and he enlarged the ball "Pokeball…GO!" the ball hit the deflated pokemon and drew it inside, we watched patiently as it started shaking before falling still,

"Alright, two catches in one day" I smirked as I held up the ball containing Aron "now that you have the rare pokemon we can finally make our way to Eterna"

He examined the ball closely "I want to take it to the Centre first, it took quite a beating without fighting back…right Turt…TURTWIG!"

The small green pokemon had lit up with a white light, in the brightness it began to grow and change "Grotle!" he cried out when it was over,

"What…what…" I pointed at it "where's Turtwig?"

Instead of being very small, this pokemon was quite large with thick green legs and yellow plating across its back; it had a large, strong jaw and on its back were two big green bushes "Turtwig evolved!" Lucas cheered "this is brilliant, now I have another page in my pokedex! The Professor is going to be so proud!" I cautiously petted Grotle on the head,

"So…it's still Turtwig he's just…bigger?"

The boy nodded "sort of, he's the same pokemon but he's just taken a different form that allows him to be stronger, all his stats will have increased too!"

"Okay…" I said slowly, still nervous "did you want to get going now?"

After returning his new pokemon Lucas smiled "yeah, just let me get Drifloon checked out and then we'll head north to Eterna"

* * *

We came to the entrance of Eterna Forest by that evening, it was going to take a few hours to traverse through because the place was supposed to be like a maze, the only way we'd be able to find our way was if we kept heading north-east, the direction of the City we wanted,

"Should we stop for the night?" I asked my friend, he shook his head,

"Either way Eterna will be dark, the trees are so thick we'll need a flashlight so we might as well get as far as we can tonight and then continue on tomorrow"

"Do we have a map or something?" again he shook his head "the place is too complicated?" he nodded "great…" I pushed through the thick branches until I fell out onto a beaten path "hey…someone marked a trail!"

I went to stand up but Lucas fell out of the trees and on-top of me "sorry!"

"You are just like Barry" I muttered as he helped me up "so, which way?" we looked left and right,

"Right, because it's in the direction we want to go, as long as we keep going that way then we should be alright"

Together we started walking, the place wasn't as dark as he'd originally made out, the setting sun still let some light in through the small gaps in the leafs and as the hours passed the moon gave us some visibility, I checked my Poketch "it's almost nine, how far have we gone do you think?"

Lucas was covered in grass stains from tripping over tree roots, I was mostly clean because I'd been following him and when he fell over I knew where to dodge,

"I'm not sure, this place is really big" picking himself up again he coughed up some grass, looking through some bushes he gave a yelp and fell back with a Wurmple attached to his face, I pulled it off and placed it on a tree, it crawled off and the dark haired boy wiped slime from his cheeks "I saw a house!"

"Hm?"

Pushing through the bushes again he pointed out a red roof "see?"

"Oh yeah…do you think they'd let us stay the night?"

"Wouldn't hurt to ask, let's go" we started fighting our way through thorns and angry bug pokemon in order to reach the building, when we finally got to the gate we looked up and gasped,

The place was completely overgrown, ivy was winding up the walls and the grass was three feet high, one of the windows was broken and the gate creaked as I pushed it open, we slowly approached the front door where Lucas knocked, the door edged open at his touch and we glanced at each other, stepping inside slowly we looked around "is anyone here?" I called out; we left footprints on the floor where the dust was so thick "I think this place is abandoned"

Lucas was already climbing up the stairs to the second floor, about half way up one of the steps broke and he got stuck "Sy!"

"Coming" I ran up and helped him pull his leg out of the hole "since this place is empty should we leave?" he tapped his chin in thought "or is it okay to stay?"

"Let's have a look around first" continuing on upstairs we started checking out the rooms, Lucas had released Drifloon and both it and Coral were acting nervous, they were sticking close to us and seemed to be focusing their gazes on corners, but whenever Lucas and I looked too we saw nothing, in one of the bedrooms was an old notebook that I flicked through, causing a cloud of dust to become lodged in my lungs, I coughed it out and dropped the item, as soon as I did a huge gust of wind blew over me and made the pages turn until they stopped on the only one with anything written on it,

"Did you see that?" I gaped at my friend "there are no windows open or anything!"

He paled and backed out of the room "p-probably just a draft, hehe"

Picking the book up again I read the words "som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..." I furrowed my eyebrows "what the…?" I placed the book back on the table and shook my head,

Lucas was next door examining the T.V which seemed to be on even though there was no electricity in the house, he turned it off but when he twisted around it flickered back on again, he frowned and tried it again but like before it just turned back on "strange" he muttered,

"Very" I added as I watched our pokemon cower behind my legs "I don't like it here, can we go?"

"Well-"

**CRACK!**

We screamed and all four of us hugged each other in fear as the loud noise echoed around the house, when it had passed we stood shaking for a couple moments before seperating,

Outside it had begun to rain and lightning was flashing across the sky "great…" I moaned "we're stuck here until morning"

"It seems pretty strange how it suddenly started" my friend commented, I rubbed the back of my head and left the small office to try and find a bedroom, there were quite a few and all of them were dusty, Lucas had claimed the room opposite mine "I don't know about you but I'm sleeping with all my pokemon tonight" he said as he scratched his neck,

"Ditto" I nodded, pulling out my pokeballs and letting out all of my teammates, Titan the Aron, Coral the alternate Totodile, Flare the Charmander, Nina the Nidoran and Dia the Larvitar, they all shuddered like they were cold and crawlled into the bed with me, luckily the bed was a king size so we could all fit, or at least we should have if they hadn't of squeezed up as tight as they could "night guys" I mumbled, they all squeaked in reply.

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Rose: Oh! They're in the Chateau! What do you think's gonna happen?

Review please!


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